


The Diranian Effect

by xsilverdreamsx



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Barebacking, Canonical Character Death, Gore, Humour, M/M, Sherlock Reverse Big Bang Challenge 2012, Some references to canonical dialogue, Sorcerer!AU, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsilverdreamsx/pseuds/xsilverdreamsx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock eyes the troll crashing through the valley towards him, each of its steps leaving behind a small crater. Once he can see the whites of its tiny eyes, he flicks out a hand. There’s a flash of blue and white. Nothing is left of the troll but a somewhat bigger crater, still smoking.</p>
<p>Sherlock sighs. “Boring,” he announces to no one in particular.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Study In Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sherlock Reverse Big Bang 2012 Challenge for etharei's awesome art prompt of Sherlock as a sorcerer!  
> Beta'ed by dansetheblues, clocks and Brit-picking by janesgravity.
> 
> **Edit:** The wonderful thebigsister has translated this fic to Chinese [here](http://221dnet.211.30i.cn/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=2893%20class=)! (This link leads closed online forum for members only, so you'd have to register to read it there.) Thank you so much, love!
> 
> **Disclaimers:** All the character images belong to BBC. I am just playing in the sandbox.

  


> _1- The year of publication for each book is following the Miyn Calendar, which bears vast similarities to the Gregorian Calendar._
> 
> _2- The term "sorcerers" applies to both the male and female adepts. The Alliance does not consider gender-applied terms to describe the practitioners of sorcery from the various genders._

  


  


**CHAPTER ONE**

**-A Study In Magic-**

> _From where does our sorcery begin? Arios spoke of a great comet that appeared in our skies, scattering its broken fragments across our realm. Any child born near the fragments had magic. The reach of the magical eddy from the fragments even touched the animals, producing all manner of magical creatures._
> 
>     _**\- Humble Beginnings** , by Panathos, First Disciple of Arios (Published 912)_

Sherlock eyes the troll crashing through the valley towards him, each of its steps leaving behind a small crater. Once he can see the whites of its tiny eyes, he flicks out a hand. There’s a flash of blue and white. Nothing is left of the troll but a somewhat bigger crater, still smoking.

Sherlock sighs. “Boring,” he announces to no one in particular.

He waits for another minute, and is rewarded with the sound of something larger and perhaps even scarier following the path of the demised troll.

A giant snake appears within sight, slithering through the forest, squashing trees and vegetation along the way. It pauses mid-path, and rears its head slightly, sniffing the air, before letting out a loud hiss and heading towards the tiny ledge jutting out from the side of the hill where Sherlock is currently standing.

It comes nearer, hissing louder. By now Sherlock can smell the putrid scent of its rotting flesh on its skin, and read the signs of death in its jeweled gaze. When it sees Sherlock, the snake rears back, its mouth agape and ready to strike –

\- and then a very confused elephant is standing amongst the trees, its bright pink skin a stark contrast against the dark green background. It looks at Sherlock, attempting to hiss, but the only sound it produces is a _fphttt_ with its tongue sticking out.

Sherlock waves his hand negligently at it. “Shoo,” he tells it. The snake-turned-elephant lifts its trunk to let out a mournful trumpet before wandering off in a daze.

A giant eyeball appears out of nowhere and hovers in front of him, unblinking. “Still playing at your games, Sherlock?”

Sherlock scowls. “Oh, go away, Mycroft,” he mutters, and proceeds to collect his books and scrolls with his little notes that he’s scribbled down. “Don’t you have someone else to eye? The Vanathian ambassador, perhaps? I’m sure he’s plotting the demise of the pie shops in Lonin that aren’t up to his standards.” He knows that his brother is sitting comfortably in his armchair deep within the walls of the Council chambers, drinking tea while casting a projection from a distance in order to speak to him. It is an old childhood feud - seeing who could sneak up on the other - and one which they had still refused to give up even at their age. There is too much at stake, of course.

“Hilarity was never your strong point, Sherlock. I’m here to remind you to find something less destructive to do. The Council has some delegates visiting from Kotu this week.” The eye swivels around to look towards where the elephant has wandered off to. “I doubt they would take kindly to you picking on their creatures.”

Sherlock answers with a rude noise.

“You do realise that you’re the only level five sorcerer without a Companion? The Council thinks that you should be assigned one again, although you’ve rejected all the ones we selected.”

“They were dull-“

“All six of them?”

“One of them tried to stab me –“

“Funny, I thought there would be more.” The eyeball begins to drift upwards. “The Council will make a decision by the end of the week. _Do_ try to behave until then, Sherlock. Oh, and Mummy sends her love.”

It disappears with a pop, and Sherlock is left alone once more.

“Show-off,” he mutters at the empty space.

When Sherlock arrives back at his tower, he discovers a scroll left on his desk. Judging by the fresh indent of claws pressed into the parchment and the lingering smell of sulfur in the room, it had most likely been dropped off by a postal wyvern no more than an hour ago.

Wyverns, and not pigeons, which means that the message is important enough to warrant the expense.

Sherlock quickly reads the scroll. There’s been a dead body, discovered in central Lonin.

He quickly opens a new portal to his next destination.

**\- + -**

Central Lonin is busier than usual, with people jostling each other shoulder to shoulder in a hurry to carry their wares and goods to the next location. Sherlock is careful to open his portal near the less populated part of the Southern district, but still manages to upset a Lonin merchant and his horse when Sherlock appears in front of them suddenly. As the merchant begins shaking his fist and spouting obscenities, Sherlock ignores him and walks off. No point engaging in the common folk who aren’t capable of handling his level of sorcery, he thinks with a smirk.

Something tugs at the edge of his senses; and he glances briefly towards the direction of where the source is coming from. A top of a giant crystal dome peeks over the rooftops of several buildings - each building dedicated to a specific Guild - that are encircling it, and the familiar sense of power emanates from one of them. He recognises the power as a concentration of several sorcerers gathering in one place, and realises that it is nearly noon; the Council is about to begin their session. Probably to discuss his refusal for a Companion, Sherlock thinks with a sniff, even though he’s told them countless times that no one in the Allied nations is worthy of being his Companion.

Thinking about the Council reminds Sherlock of Mycroft, and in turn, reminds him that he’s not been back in their birth nation, Miyn, for more than a year. Miyn may be several thousand miles away - right next to Rustari on the map - but he knows he can travel there via his portal spells in a matter of seconds. He just doesn’t want to. Compared to the other nations in the Alliance - which consists of Irlan, Miyn, Kotu, Vanath and Lonin, joined together after years of war and strife - Miyn bores him utterly.

The ancient bells begin to chime from the giant clock tower in the middle of the city, reminding Sherlock of his task. He makes his way towards the Merchant’s Circle, where all the trade shops have been set up, sidestepping two overly-excited young women practically drenched with the scent of roses and jasmine who have just stepped out of a shop and into his path. By the time the twelfth chime has rung from the clock tower, Sherlock arrives at the right place - which isn’t that hard to spot considering that there are several policemen and two horse-drawn transport carriages painted with the symbol of the Lonin Police Force, all converging in front of the potion shop.

A woman with frizzy hair and an angry look bars his way when Sherlock is about to step into the shop. “What do you think you’re doing here, freak?” she demands.

“I was invited, Miss Donovan.”

“Let him in, Sally,” the man behind the counter calls out. “He’s here to help us.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Lestrade,” she snaps back, but steps aside to allow Sherlock to pass through.

“Lovely to see you, Sally. Had a good time with Anderson today?” Sherlock tells her smugly. Anderson had scowled at him a few seconds ago when Sherlock had walked past him and complimented his perfume.

“How did you know – I didn’t —“

“The perfume you’re wearing now happens to be a new scent that was placed on the counters at Madame Chautier’s apothecary two days ago – lovely smell, by the way – and considering that Anderson’s wife is out of town and would not have had a chance to procure it yet, I very much doubt he would have bought it for himself to use since Madame Chautier does not allow men into her shop, leading me to deduce that you must have been wearing it when you and Anderson – dear god, the image is horrifying for me – _necking_ with each other – “ Sherlock pauses, and peers at the bruise on her throat, “ – four hours ago.”

Her mouth drops open, and Sherlock steps past her to join Lestrade.

“Was that necessary, Sherlock?” Lestrade asks him quietly.

“Well, yes, I was bored. Who’s this?” He kneels down to peer at the dead man lying on the floor, whose eyes are wide open, filled completely with black without any hint of whites. The bruises on his arms are unlike anything he’s seen before. Spread across in splotches, the veins are a stark black against the skin. He can see that a magical barrier has been set up around the body, preserving it from rotting any further. “Did anyone else touch the body yet?”

“Alan Richardson, 34, owns the shop,” Lestrade informs him. “Apart from our people who set up the barrier, and the person who found Mr. Richardson dead this morning, no one else has been near the body.”

“Mmm...” Sherlock ignores the barrier and lets his magic wrap itself around the shopkeeper’s body, providing a brief assessment of the victim. “Death from possible asphyxiation, no visible marks around the nose and mouth or on the neck so he couldn’t have been choked. But it could be due to something he ingested since there aren’t any cuts or wounds to the body, even with these odd bruises.”

“It’s our third one this month. By the way, Anderson’s already done a physical search of the body-”

“Anderson’s an idiot,” Sherlock declares.

“He’s one of our best, Sherlock.”

Sherlock scoffs. “He would have missed everything relevant, especially when it comes to magic. Which is, I assume, exactly why you called me, isn’t it?”

Lestrade shoots him a look that is a cross between pain and defeat, before replying. “Will you help?”

Pleased, Sherlock hums in affirmation and gets to work. He sweeps his eyes around the room. The shelves of the display cabinet are lined with bottles, filled with various kinds of potions. Another shelf containing books catches his eye, the titles indicating them as having written by long-dead scholars on the topic of sorcery. He sweeps past this and to see that Sally is whispering furiously with Anderson at the door and casting nasty looks at Sherlock. He turns, and notices that the money till is locked, the key still in its keyhole, while the rest of the shop looks undisturbed.

Sherlock closes his eyes.

When he opens them next, the entire room is bathed in grey, and he repeats his search again. Magic resonates from the potion bottles and books, while the money till has traces of the dead shopkeeper’s magical imprint, the same imprint that’s scattered around the shop. Under this spell, the barrier surrounding the body is glowing a bright blue colour, and beneath it —

Ah... there it is. Sherlock bends over the body, stripping away the barrier. He finds himself looking at an insect, a beetle of some kind that would have escaped detection had it not been marked by a soft, pulsing glow outlining its shape. It’s no bigger than his nail, with sharp pincers almost half the size of its body still latched onto the skin of the dead shopkeeper.

Sherlock’s curiosity increases. He has never seen this breed before. He has heard of only two kinds that are able to shroud themselves in a cloak of invisibility, but they’re not lethal to humans.

He traps the beetle in a glass jar, and stands up.

“Well then,” Sherlock says, letting go of the spell, watching the normal colours of reality seep back into everything. “Finally, something _fun_.”

**\- + -**

Leaning back against the carriage, John holds out his hands. He can’t help but feel a flash of anger as he stares at them.

At what little power they held. At the fact that they had failed him again.

The man is dead, and John can’t bring him back to life.

Waking up that morning had been like any waking up on any other other morning. With barely enough sunlight slipping through the heavily curtained windows to bring him back into reality, John has become accustomed to waking up in cold sweat, reaching out for a shield that isn’t there, for a sword that he can no longer wield. As the screams and howls of pain of his men dying begin to fade away, the acrid, smoky taste that’s left in his mouth from the nightmares serve as a reminder of that fateful day in Rustari.

_“John,” the healer’s voice was patient, but he could see the strain around her eyes, as if she had grown tired of repeating herself to him. “Adjusting back to normal life will be hard, but writing down everything that happens around you will help you.”_

_He had looked her in the eye then, holding her gaze and feeling empty inside. “Nothing ever happens to me.”_

And isn’t that the truth, even now? Even with a medal of honour presented to him for his ‘bravery’ and ‘loyalty’ to the Alliance, the bitter taste of failure loomed over him. Harry had tried; had helped set him up in a small rented room in the Western district, tried to get him to head out to the pub for a round of ale, even tried asking him to keep in touch, the concern of a sibling evident in the messages left in his letter-box.

But the feeling was too new, too raw for him, and John had turned Harry down, every time.

He hears the sound of footsteps approaching, and looks up to see Inspector Lestrade, whom John has met briefly earlier, approaching them. John pushes himself away from the carriage, squaring his shoulder while adjusting his cane, and straightens his coat.

“Could you excuse us for a moment, Jameson?” Lestrade asks the young constable who’s been assigned to look after John.

The constable is visibly relieved to be excused from his post of watching over John and almost trips over his own feet trying to stand to attention. “Yes, sir.” He scurries off.

John catches sight of the man standing behind Lestrade. Tall and imposing, he’s wearing the robes of a sorcerer, purple instead of the usual black that John is accustomed to seeing. The man’s skin is pale, too pale, as if he’s barely had any exposure to the sun, and the gold circlet resting on his head are signify that he is no ordinary sorcerer, but a higher Adept. He’s struck by the man’s angular, cat-like eyes, that seem to take in everything around him at once, looking at John from head to toe, lingering at his wrists before glancing away, bored.

“Watson, we’d like to get your permission to review your memories during your discovery,” Lestrade says.

“Sorry, why? I gave my statement earlier, that should be enough. I’d actually like to go home now, if you won’t be needing me -”

“Oh, this is ridiculous, Lestrade, we’re just wasting time _asking_ -”

“Sherlock, if you don’t mind-”

“He’s a military man, so he’ll understand the urgency. His mind can handle the spell easily since he’s a healer, after all.”

John is startled at the revelation. “How did you know all that? I didn’t tell anyone -”

The sorcerer - Sherlock - waves his hand impatiently. “Rustari campaign, yes? Recently returned home, visiting the shop to look for a potion or herb to take the pain away from your leg, which, by the way, is perfectly healthy but your mind won’t accept that, and you’re afraid to go to anyone else because they’ve all told you the exact same thing.”

John raises his eyebrows in surprise.

The inspector glares once at Sherlock, before turning to speak to John. “Since you were the first person to have discovered the shopkeeper, Sherlock’s plan is to go through your memories of that moment -”

Sherlock jumps in, “- so I won’t have to waste my time waiting for you to -”

“We just need your permission, but you are of course under no obligation to say yes. To me or to him,” the inspector interrupts smoothly.

“No - no, wait. I’ll do it,” John says, as Sherlock shoots Lestrade a triumphant look. As odd as the request is, he doesn’t see what he’s got to lose. “What do I have to - ”

Suddenly Sherlock’s hands are gripping the sides of his head tightly. Clear blue eyes stare at him, and John finds himself falling into them.

_Show me._

Immobile, trapped by the spell, John watches as his memories are replayed through his mind.

Shift.

_He’s in the shop, the door closed behind him. Nothing moves inside, not even the windchime that’s near the open window by the side of the shop._

Shift.

_He calls out. No one answers. He steps closer towards the shop counter._

Shift.

_The shopkeeper is lying on the floor , his eyes completely filled with black and wide open. He checks the wrist for a pulse, finding none. He hears a faint sound, as if something is scurrying off, and then a whisper -_

_\- and a white glow shrouds the body._

_You tried to heal him._

_Why?_

_He’s dead._

_He won’t come back._

_No one comes back._

_John. John. John!_

“John! Look at me!” Pain flares in his head, and he reacts instinctively, pushing Sherlock away, before he staggers back.

“What happened?” John can hear Lestrade asking, but his head is spinning, the world is spinning.

Sherlock’s eyes, filled with surprise and worry, are the last things he sees before he blacks out.

**\- + -**

For the first time in a month, John wakes up to the sound of voices instead of explosions and screams.

“Ooo, Sherlock, he’s finally awake!” he hears a cheerful voice utter, and John tries to clear the fog in his mind.

A blurry head full of white pops up in his vision, followed by a cheerful cooing sound. “Oh you poor dear, you remind me of my second husband. He always had such fainting spells.” John blinks, and the blurry head is replaced by a smiling elderly lady, looking down at him, beaming in a motherly sort of way.

“Where am I?” He croaks out, and clears his throat several times to get rid of the dryness. He’s lying down on what seems to be a couch, which feels rather nice and soft, except for the oddly shaped object poking him in the back.

“In my tower.”

John turns his head, and sees that Sherlock is seated across the room, observing him.

He pushes himself upright, looks down at the couch and discovers a skull.

“I wondered where that had been! Thank you.” Sherlock is across the room in three strides, snatching the skull up.

“Er...”

“Oh, Sherlock, this place is such a mess,” the elderly lady chides Sherlock who has placed the skull on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, and is now practically leaning out of his window, adjusting something outside the sill. She leans closer towards John and tells him with a knowing look. “My husband used to be just like that. But I can tell you’re the neat type, you know.”

John feels confused. “What?”

Sherlock seems not to have heard her, and calls out, “Some tea, Mrs. Hudson, and biscuits if you have any.”

“I’m not your housekeeper, dear,” she chides him gently, turning to leave, but there’s a small smile on her lips. John suspects that Sherlock will get his tea regardless of what she’s said.

When her footsteps finally fade away, Sherlock pulls himself back into the room and practically bounces over to John’s side, throwing himself into the chair next to the couch.

They have a small staring competition, before Sherlock speaks, breaking the silence.

“You pushed me out of your mind,” he begins slowly, his fingers pressed together under his chin, watching John.

He remembers the flood of the memories, and kicking Sherlock out of his head.

“Interesting. What happened today,” Sherlock continues. “There aren’t many healers who can block out a memory reading - of course, it’s easier for sorcerers - although you ended up draining yourself. Your magic feels rather... different.”

John feels stung at the remark. He knows that his healing magic has always been odd, which was why he chose the path of a soldier instead of a healer. “Why am I here?” he asks instead.

Sherlock looks amused at the change in topic. “Lestrade wanted to send you to your Healers’ Circle, but I convinced him that all you needed was some rest to regain your magic again.”

“Are you one of his men?”

Sherlock scoffs, and manages to look both amused and insulted at the same time. “Of course not, I don’t work for anyone. I’m more of a consultant.”

“A … consultant.”

“A consulting detective, actually.” Sherlock leans back against his seat. “Now, to the heart of the matter. When you found the victim, you tried to revive him by healing him.” Sherlock is looking at John. “When I cast a spell to search the room for magic, I had found nothing. Except, for _your_ healing spell, which had left its mark on this.” Sherlock holds up a small glass tube, sealed by the cork at the mouth. John sees a dead beetle is inside, covered in a mud-like substance.

“Behold, our murder weapon.”

“ _That_ was what killed the shopkeeper?” John looks at the tiny insect in disbelief. “I’ve never heard of a beetle bite lethal enough to kill a man.”

“Nor should you. They’ve been extinct for nearly four hundred years. This,” Sherlock shakes the tube a little, and the beetle suddenly reacts, snapping its pincers and trying to scurry out of the tube, revealing that it had been acting dead earlier, “is a hybrid. A common sand beetle, known for being able to camouflage itself anywhere, combined with a Kotu stag beetle.” He looks at the insect a little too fondly, and it glares back at him, before vanishing, but the mud covering its carapace reveals that it is still inside the tube, invisible.

“But why would such a thing be found here, in the middle of Lonin? Sand beetles are native to the Rustari dunes.”

“It was brought here, and set on the victims. This is not the first time however, although I would say that your healing spell had a reverse effect on the beetle and stunned it instead before it could make its escape, unlike the other two times.”

“ _Three_ victims?” John asks incredulously. A flapping sound distracts him for a moment, and he whirls around to find himself face to face with a hideous, scaly face. In shock, he takes a step back, his eyes widening.

The small wyvern hisses. A scroll is clasped in its claws as the creature - its body slighter longer than John’s arm - flaps its wings lazily to keep itself aloft.

“Make that four,” Sherlock tells him.

**\- + -**

This time, the portal opens up in front of a townhouse near the Vanath Market. The constable guarding the entrance has gone into the building to fetch Lestrade, refusing to accept at face value that both Sherlock and John were to be allowed to step inside.

He snorts to himself at this incompetence, and wonders if the Lonin forces have been recruiting from the backwater villages of Kotu.

By now, the sun is beginning to set, casting its orange glow over the roofs of other similar-looking homes which are lined up next to one another. The sounds from the Market have lowered to a quiet buzz, as the farmers begin to pack their carts, ready to head back to their home nation. There’s a series of grunts from the cages at the edge of the market - live Koturi boars which the hunters from that region have brought in - mixed in with the desperate pleas of the merchants calling for customers to view their wares.

A lone workman hums as he stops by a streetlamp near them, lifting his pole to stir awake the fire imp that is residing inside. A tiny red face peeks out of the top of the glass bauble, yawning widely and revealing a tiny forked tongue, before slipping back inside the lamp. Within moments, the lamp begins to glow, outlining the shape of the creature inside that’s producing the light from its body.

Under the glow of the lamp, Sherlock busies himself by studying John Watson. He studies the other man in very much the same manner as one would study a curious, new object, trying to break down to its core, to comprehend what makes it work, what makes it so, _fascinating_.

To say that Sherlock Holmes is fascinated by this man is a stretch.

Attraction?

No. Sherlock finds physical attraction to be a human failing. And dull. He knows, he’s indulged himself once or twice, submitting to the urges of his body, but has always left the encounter feeling numb, lacking in something. He would rather turn those urges into something more primal, which is why he takes to the Kotu jungles to practise his spells.

Not attraction. He discards the idea immediately.

Yet he cannot help but watch as John stands here, his hands clasped together behind his back, his head tilted back as he studies the building. He’s dressed in simple clothes, his overcoat looking slightly worn and well-washed, the collar of his shirt peeking out. He’s not a tall man, but from this angle Sherlock can see that by the way he’s holding himself, John Watson is not someone to be pushed around.

John pulls out his pocket watch, glancing at the time, and Sherlock catches a quick glimpse of the mark on his wrist again - a snake wrapped around a sword. He wonders exactly how sensitive the skin would be.

“Sherlock.” John’s voice interrupts his musings.

“Hmm?” Sherlock glances at him and startles slightly as John looks back at him with a mixture of awe and curiosity.

Sherlock has never had someone look at him that way before. He has had looks of disdain, scorn, and even fear or anger - and, although he will never admit it, the occasional fondness from Mrs. Hudson - but not this.

As if... as if _Sherlock_ is something to be studied as well.

“How did you know about Rustari?” John asks. Sherlock has been expecting this question. He’s surprised it’s taken John this long to ask about Sherlock’s deduction earlier today.

“Hardly any effort, John. I got everything from you in a glance.”

John looks at him with an expression that is closer to the kind that he is familiar with. Sherlock frowns. He doesn’t like this face; he wants the same look John was giving him earlier back.

He decides to elaborate. “When I first saw you, you greeted Lestrade with a military stance: back straight, legs apart, straightening your coat and collar out of habit. But then you questioned him, which meant you were used to giving orders rather than taking them, suggesting that you were more than a typical soldier, and certainly not someone assigned to the outlying posts of our allied nations. The backs of your hands are sunburnt, but your face and neck isn’t, which indicates that you had your face covered outdoors, as protecting against the sandstorms, hence Rustari.”

“You could have taken all that from my mind when you were sifting through my memories,” John points out. “Especially about my leg.”

“I could have, but I didn’t have to,” Sherlock tells him. “Your leg: you had the cane in hand, but when you directed your question at Lestrade, you shifted your weight onto that very same leg without any reaction, which suggested that you’ve been having phantom pains in that leg. You also have a brother who has a drinking problem, whom you’re avoiding contact with.”

“How can you possibly know about the drinking?”

Sherlock points at the pocket watch that John’s still holding in his hand. “A person of your rank in the military would have been given a specific design by the army, but yet this is too fancy and delicate for you. You handle it as if you’re not used to it, yet you’re careful with it, which indicates that it’s a present. But the marks around the hole where the key is used to wind it is scratched, indicating an unsteady hand, an alcoholic, trying to plug the key in. When you lift it to check for the time, I saw the inscriptions ‘H. Watson’.”

John’s mouth drops open a little. Sherlock feels a little pleased.

“And last, but not least,” Sherlock adds, and reaches for John’s arm, lifting it up and pushing the sleeve down, revealing the mark on his wrist. “A healer’s tattoo, given - “ he traces it, counting the ridges and observing the colours that have been muted over time, “ - at least five years ago.”

“That was. That was _brilliant_.”

Sherlock looks at him in surprise. “Really?” He can feel that same smugness he gets whenever he’s done deducing something fantastic, rising inside him, but this time it’s wrapped in a warmth that’s sort of... pleasant. Sherlock can feel his cheeks twitch a little, teasing him into a smile.

John is looking at him with that expression again, before he answers. “Yes,” he says quietly, returning Sherlock’s smile, but his cheeks are slightly flushed.

Sherlock realises that he’s still holding John’s arm, the pad of his fingertips warm against the skin of his wrist.

He drops it quickly, and clears his throat awkwardly before taking a step back. “That’s... that’s not what most people say.”

“What do they say?”

“Piss off.” The answering laugh, loud and surprised, breaks the mood. Sherlock mind records John’s expression, the tone of his voice, and feel of his skin, warm and rough against Sherlock’s fingers and stores it all away for the future.

“So did I get everything right?” Sherlock asks.

John doesn’t look at him, but the corners of his mouth are turned up in a small smile. “Almost. ‘H’, is short for Harriet.”

Sherlock swears, before muttering to himself, “ _Harriet_. Why didn’t I think of that-”

He’s interrupted by a familiar nasal voice. “This place is for the authorised members of the force only, Sherlock.” Sherlock glances up to find that Anderson has approached them, flanked by Sally.

“Why are you here again?” Sally demands, the unspoken _freak_ hanging off the end of her sentence.

In fact, neither of them is looking particularly pleased to discover him there. Sherlock beams at them.

“Problem?”

He hears John making a choked noise - a cross between a laugh and a cough. The noise attracts her attention, however. “Why are _you_ here?”

“He’s here to help me,” Sherlock tells her. Lestrade’s message had indicated that this death was related to the one discovered that morning. If this was true, Sherlock would need John’s help again.

Just then, the front door opens and Lestrade sticks his head out. “Sherlock, we’ve been waiting - Oh hello, John,” Lestrade breaks off when he catches sight of John, and he raises an eyebrow at Sherlock.

Sherlock ushers John inside hastily, as Lestrade turns to the other two. “Donovan, Anderson, stay here.”

“I still don’t see why we need him,” Anderson whines. “This was obviously -”

“Please, Anderson, don’t talk. You’re lowering the IQ of everyone here when you do,” Sherlock interrupts him in a pained voice.

Anderson’s eyes are nearly bulging out of his head at this.

“What - ”

“Thank you for your input.” Sherlock catches Anderson’s brief look of indignation before the door slams shut on his face.

**\- + -**

“Try to avoid the bits,” is all the warning Sherlock gets before Lestrade leads them towards the room where the doorway is shimmering with a magical barrier -

\- and then he understands why.

The ‘bits’ that Lestrade refers to are: one foot, several fingers, a half-burnt hand and several other body parts that are near impossible to identify, currently scattered around the parlour.

Next to him, he hears John letting out a hiss of disbelief and horror.

“Gods,” John says, “what caused this?”

Sherlock takes in the placement of the various pieces of flesh, the way it’s been ripped, and the burnt edges and discolouration. “Not what, but who,” Sherlock mutters. “What did you find, Lestrade?”

Wordlessly, Lestrade leads them over to a worktable, where a row of bottles and a candle is still burning away steadily. Atop the books and scrolls, a human head rests on its cheek.

The eyes are wide open and filled completely with black, just like the dead shopkeeper this morning. Sherlock is beginning to sense that this is more than a simple case, but something else on a larger scale.

Sherlock turns to John. “Can you do what you did this morning again?” John raises an eyebrow. “Try to cast a healing spell on the body.” He eyes the head, then adds, “all parts of it.”

“Wait a minute, Sherlock, why do you need him to do that?” Lestrade holds a hand up.

Sherlock ignores Lestrade and grasps John by the shoulders, looking into his eyes. “The spell, John, hurry, before it escapes again.”

He watches as John hesitates, before he touches the head briefly. Sherlock casts a secondary spell, tracking John’s magic.

“Anything?” John asks.

“Try something else. Try,” Sherlock looks around, and points at the pieces by the couch, the colours still greyed-out by Sherlock’s spell, “here, these ones here.”

John leans forward, and Sherlock sees the magic flow out from his fingers, the tendrils sinking into the flesh.

Something glows, blue and familiar.

“Quick, Lestrade, I need a jar or a bottle,” Sherlock demands, and an empty jar is shoved in front of him. Hurriedly, he bends down, using his powers to transfer the object into the jar and closing the lid.

When he releases his spells, and the world shifts back into colour, he finds himself looking at a familiar insect. The shape and colours match the same beetle that currently resides in a small glass tube inside his tower. This time, however, it’s not invisible.

“That’s -” Lestrade begins, and Sherlock turns towards him.

“Exactly the same beetle we found on the other victim. So you were right, Lestrade, for once, that this was most definitely linked to the body we found this morning.”

“Oh, please, he was clearly mauled to death,” Anderson cuts in suddenly. He’s somehow stepped into the room while Sherlock had been distracted by the search for the beetle. “Look at the state of his body, it’s not like anyone would believe he was poisoned.”

“He has a point, Sherlock,” Lestrade tells him.

Sherlock snorts. “Only someone dim-witted enough would believe that. We’re looking for a sorcerer, not one of those Kotu beasts.”

“A sorcerer?” John asks. “Why a sorcerer?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” But Sherlock can see the look on John’s face.

“Not to me, it isn’t,” John insists.

Sherlock sighs.

**\- + -**

They stand outside the house, quiet in their thoughts, Lestrade having kicked them out after Sherlock has made him and the rest of his forces look like amateurs. Again.

It wouldn’t be such a problem if they would just use their brains, but Sherlock can’t help being more brilliant than them.

“Aren’t we going to -” John waves his hands around, indicating the movement of a portal opening. Nearby, there’s a sound of commotion from the market, but Sherlock doesn’t pay any attention to it.

“I think better when I’m walking,” Sherlock tells him. John’s face looks briefly pained, and Sherlock knows that he is thinking of his limp and the inconvenience of using his cane.

He turns and stalks down the street. Once he’s a safe distance away from the house, he stops for a while and lets John, who is huffing slightly from the effort of hobbling after Sherlock with the cane in one hand, catch up with him.

“What was that all about, back in the house?” John asks, panting a little. “Can’t you use your magic to trace who created the hybrids? Case solved, that sort of thing.”

Sherlock whirls around. “Don’t you see? Doesn’t anyone see it at all? Why go through all the trouble to take down all these random victims with no connection whatsoever? Why spend the effort of creating a hybrid of beetles, when you could just as easily slit their throats - if they were looking to avoid leaving any evidence of magic, when -”

He breaks off, looking at John’s expression.

John is looking over Sherlock’s shoulder, his eyes wide open in shock.

Something grunts behind him. Sherlock turns, and sees a Koturi boar, as tall as him and twice the width, pawing at the ground. A metal ring has been pierced through its nose, and the hunters’ brand on its chest is glowing.

It looks up, and catches sight of both men, before narrowing its eyes, its tusks gleaming nastily.

“Bloody hell,” Sherlock hears the curse from John. The boar swings its head towards the direction of John’s voice, and takes a step back, ready to charge at him.

“Run!” Sherlock shouts at John, desperate to get him out of harm’s way.

As they take off running, he can hear the thundering sound of the boar’s hooves hitting the ground, the tremor from its weight sending echoes all around them. There are shouts and screams of horror and fear as the people around them leap out of the way to avoid being trampled. Sherlock considers turning around to face the creature - the time spent picking on trolls did have its uses, after all - but when narrowly avoids crashing into a peddler's cart that’s been abandoned in a hurry and nearly getting gored by the boar’s tusks, he changes his mind.

He spies the entrance to an alley way on his left, and he ducks into it quickly, still being followed by the boar that’s now catching up. Turning his head around, Sherlock sees that the boar is about to crash, snout-first, into his back, and he throws himself to one side. The creature smashes its snout into the brick wall of one of the houses and large cracks begin to appear.

Shaking its head, the giant boar turns around to lock its stare on Sherlock. Its eyes appear too intelligent and aware to be a simple, mindless beast, as if _something_ is controlling it.

Sherlock can hear John panting heavily, sounding breathless as he says something about “following madmen around Lonin” but he shuts out the noise and begins to cast his spell. The words appear in his head, glowing, rolling across his vision as he draws in his power, lifting one hand towards the boar.

It charges.

Under normal circumstances, the spell would have frozen the creature mid-stampede, allowing Sherlock to render it unconscious.

A giant boar with immunity to magic and a hint of intelligence was _not_ , on any day, a normal circumstance. Sherlock allows himself one moment of surprise before the boar sends him flying across the alley.

His back hits the wall, the shield he’s set up around his body absorbing most of the impact. Feeling dazed, he looks up to see that the boar is now pawing the ground, getting ready for a second charge. Sherlock tries to cast his spell again, only to watch in dismay as the ice that should have formed around the beast fails to take shape.

The boar lets out another grunt, snorting, and lowers its head, before charging.

Suddenly John is standing in front of Sherlock and holding a broken chair leg in front of him like a spear.

The sound of flesh tearing echoes through the alley, followed by a horrible squealing noise. The force of the impact shoves John backwards towards Sherlock, who releases his own shields and rips open the wall behind him to avoid both of them from getting crushed.

Moments later, when the dead beast is lying on its side, the makeshift stake having been driven into its heart and chest, Sherlock looks at John, who looks like he has been through hell, before reaching up to touch a particularly aching spot on his head gingerly. When he pulls his hand away, he discovers that it’s covered in blood.

John winces, and pulls himself up, crawling over to where Sherlock is lying against the rubble. “Let me,” he says, and he places his hands on Sherlock’s arms, gripping them. Slowly, Sherlock can feel warmth seeping throughout his body, flowing through the same channels as his blood and numbing the pain in his ribs where he is sure that he has broken several of his ribs during the encounter.

He gasps out loud as the rest of the healing spell takes over, joining his broken ribs together again and soothing over aching bruises and wounds. John’s hands move away, taking the warmth with him. Sherlock almost protests at the loss of contact.

“Better?” he hears John ask, and he feels his chin being lifted, and sees John looking at him, coming closer, near enough -

\- no, he’s just checking Sherlock’s eyes for signs of shock, and nothing else.

Yet Sherlock can’t help but study his lips, feeling a sense of comfort and trust, being near him. “Yes,” Sherlock replies to John’s earlier inquiry, his voice coming out dry and cracked. He clears his throat audibly, and licks his dry lips, trying to get some moisture.

He sees John tracking the movement, and then feels the fingers that are cupping his chin shift, as John swipes a thumb at the side of Sherlock’s mouth. “You’ve a bit of blood there.” John lifts his hand, and Sherlock can see the stain, red and shining against the skin.

It’s too much, the adrenaline, the healing spell, the rush of everything. John’s close proximity. John touching him. Sherlock wants to soak in all in and wants to run away from it all.

He wraps his fingers around John’s wrists, and pulls him in, and kisses him.

**\- + -**

John’s lips are tingling, the feeling of Sherlock’s lips still lingering from the brief and chaste kiss he had received earlier.

He wonders if they might have gone further than that, had the owner of the half-ruined kitchen not barged in, holding up a nasty-looking club and shouting at them. Sherlock - whose energy was restored by John’s healing - had cast a shield over them to avoid having their heads split open by the angry man. It had taken a small pouch of gold coins produced by Sherlock to pacify him.

To make things worse, a group of hunters had appeared, looking very annoyed that Sherlock had killed their boar and deprived them of their earnings that day. Nevermind that it would have destroyed half the homes there and injured people had they not stopped it.

When Lestrade showed up, he rolled his eyes at Sherlock and slapped a fine on the hunters for improper methods of containing a wild animal. And, for good measure, charged them for the destruction of public property, forcing Sherlock to pay the owner of the home for ruining his kitchen wall, of course.

When Sherlock and John had finally stepped through the portal into Sherlock’s tower, John had discovered that he had lost his cane during their run-in with the beast. Sherlock had pointed out that he had hardly needed it, running at full speed across the town like any healthy man and taking on the creature on his own. John had been shocked to discover that Sherlock was, indeed right. He had never needed the crutch.

Sherlock had glanced over at John briefly, looking as if he was trying to solve a puzzle, and then had suggested that John head home to rest.

John hadn’t want to leave, but he knew that Sherlock was right. The disadvantages of being a healer was not being able to heal himself, and the events of that entire day was beginning to take its toll on him.

Sherlock had seen his hesitation. _Tomorrow_ , was all he said, his eyes softening for a moment, before he turned towards his desk, lifting up the jar containing the beetle, and John saw the sorcerer replacing the man once more.

John steps out of the tower, hailing a horse-drawn carriage to take him back to his own place while he thinks over the events that have occurred over the past day. As chaotic (and dangerous) as the situation had been, he’s forced to admit that there’s a slight tug of yearning that leads him wanting more. He ignores the little voice that tells him that he wants to be around Sherlock.

At home, John is still deep in thought as he unlocks his door. When he steps through it, he promptly finds himself in a completely different room. He turns, trying to grab hold of the door before it can swing shut, but it slips out of his hands, slamming against the frame. A click indicates that it’s locked.

The door disappears.

Behind him, someone clears their throat.

John whirls around, and finds himself looking at a man, tall and pale, standing in the middle of the hall, his mantle marking him as a sorcerer.

“Hello, John.”

John can only glare at him. “You know, most people would just knock.”

“When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet,” the man offers as an explanation, which infuriates John even more.

He finds himself being studied intently. The act is familiar, but John can’t quite place where he’s seen the same sort of gaze before.

“You don’t seem very afraid.”

“You don’t seem very frightening.”

The man laughs at this. The sound is dry and without much humour, but John can feel the power behind it. This is no ordinary sorcerer.

“What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?” he asks. John feels his spine stiffening in response, alert and suspicious.

“I barely even know him, after all, we’ve only met today.”

“Oh, but it _is_ my business to know these things. After all, it isn’t everyday that Sherlock Holmes runs around solving crimes with someone he barely knows. Especially someone whom he seems to have romantic ties to,” the man tells him. “Planning on picking out the china together next, perhaps?”

John is getting tired of this. “Who are you?” he demands, changing the subject. “His friend? An ex-boyfriend? Why are you so concerned about me being around him?

“Not a friend, and most definitely not an _ex_.” The man chuckles. Again, the sound is humourless. “I am... I suppose Sherlock would consider me an archnemesis.”

“How dramatic. And what do you want from me, or from Sherlock, for that matter?”

“Nothing from Sherlock, but perhaps... perhaps you could help me, John. With any information you may pick up, if you plan on being around Sherlock. You’ll be paid handsomely, of course.” The man holds out a leather pouch, and shakes it slightly. John can hear the clinking sounds of coins inside it. “In gold.”

John shifts his leg out of habit, but there’s no stiffness, no pain following this. This is all the answer he needs.

“No.” Sherlock may be eccentric, but he’s the only person who hasn’t gone around treating him as if he’s something that’s about to break. “I’m not interested, so you can keep your gold.”

The man raises an eyebrow at this declaration. “So loyal, so quickly? Do you now trust Sherlock Holmes, of all people?”

John is barely containing his rage at this point. “Are we done here? If you’re not planning to kill me or torture me, you might as well send me back.”

Another long look. “Remarkable.”

“I’m getting very, _very_ tired of all this-”

“I must admit that when I first heard about you, I was rather skeptical. Most of the Companions assigned to Sherlock have been somewhat... bigger.”

This strikes John as odd. He doesn't recall seeing a Companion around Sherlock the entire time. If there had been one and Sherlock hadn’t bothered to bring his Companion along - John won’t surprise if this is the case - then John is going to have give Sherlock a piece of his mind the next time they meet. The purpose of a Companions is to protect their sorcerer from non-magical threats; alternately, the sorcerer was responsible for shielding his or her Companion from magical harm.

Then John realises what the mysterious sorcerer is implying.

“I’m not - hang on a minute - I’m not his Companion - ”

“Well. Not yet, perhaps.”

“Not bloody likely. If you haven’t noticed, I have magic as well. I’m not exactly fitting the criteria.”

“It’s unusual but not uncommon. Perhaps this may be the first time we’ve have a Companion of your magical level, however.” The sorcerer looks thoughtful. “You’re an army man, which still fulfills _some_ of the requirements -”

John holds back the scathing reply that is forming on the tip of his tongue, but then he sees the man raise his hand, and hears the familiar rushing sound of the portal opening behind him.

“Most people, John, go about their daily lives, following the path that society has placed before them. You, on the other hand, seem to have gone against that completely.”

Right before he leaves, he hears the parting words.

“You will be good for Sherlock.”

The portal closes behind him with a wink, and John finds himself outside his own flat, staring right at his own door once more.


	2. The Great Discovery

> _Is sorcery a blessing, or a curse? The twin sons of a simple mason rebuilt city of Miyn after the war, filling it with tall spires and delicate crystal-like filigree adorning each tower and reflecting the morning sun would indicate the former._
> 
> _As a counterpoint, the Diranian Plague - named after the child who cast the misplaced spell that wiped out his entire village including himself - is brought up as the most common argument against sorcery._
> 
>     
> 
> _- **“Sorcery: Good Or Bad?”** by Rory Williams (Published 1701)_
> 
>   
> 

The next morning, John finds himself standing outside Sherlock’s short, squat tower, furiously knocking on the wooden door. A postal wyvern had appeared in his study earlier, dropping another scroll in his hands, with the words _Urgent, come at once - SH_ scribbled hurriedly on it. John had only stopped for a brief gulp of of cold tea before running out the door, hailing down a horse-drawn carriage to get here.

Mrs. Hudson greets him pleasantly at the door and chatters away calmly while leading John up the spiralling staircase. From her conversation, he discovers that she owns the property and the bakery that’s attached to it (which explains the pleasant smell of baking bread that’s been teasing at his senses). John also finds out that the top floor was given to Sherlock in gratitude for helping her several years back, while she lives on the ground floor.

John breathlessly enters the room, expecting chaos and mayhem or perhaps another strange beast. Instead, he finds Sherlock calmly peering through a contraption of sorts that’s made of with wheels and mirrors, completely unharmed.

Sherlock looks up, surprised to find him there. “John, good to see you. Have you been running?”

“What?” John gasps out. “You sent me a message, remember?”

The other man gives him a curious look, and then lights up. “Oh, yes! Blood samples from the latest victim. Come and have a look, tell me what you see.” John gapes at him. “Well, come on, we haven’t got all day.”

“You sent me a message using a wyvern to ask me to come and look at -”

“We’ll get to that in a moment.” Sherlock gestures at the contraption.

“Are you sure you’re meant to be sharing this kind of information with me - I mean, Lestrade-” John asks warily, but Sherlock makes a rude noise.

“He’s not here, and besides, I require your expertise.”

John suppresses a sigh, before stepping closer to bend down and peer through the tiny looking glass.

“I built it myself, of course,” he hears Sherlock saying proudly. “It works like a microscope, but it also shows the magical essence of whatever you’re looking at.” John can see a number of red, moving globes, shifting and bumping into one another. Each of them are coated in a slick of some sort, so dark it’s almost black, pulsing away.

John has only seen drawings of this once, but he is sure that he is looking at the base construct of the Diranian Plague.

“That’s impossible,” he says, looking away from the globes, trying to push down the feeling of nausea rising up. So many lives had been lost during the plague. “I thought this was destroyed over a century ago.”

“Impossible, but not improbable, John. A level five Adept with an affinity for disease spells and access to the medical archives could conjure up the same strain. This, however,” Sherlock gestures at the microscope, “is not the Diranian Plague but a less evolved form. It’s not contagious, but it’s still as deadly, replicating the same method of death by travelling up the bloodstream and stopping the heart, filling up the throat with a burning substance.”

“But what about the last victim, the one that was blown apart in his own home? There was barely enough of him left in the room.”

Sherlock fiddles with the microscope, replacing the glass sheet that John had been looking at with another tiny one. “Now look at this.”

This time, the red globes, still coated in the same black slick, are expanding and contracting furiously. John swears, leaning away from the madness of the disease. “They’re heating up.”

Sherlock nods. “The same plague, slight different conjuration with led to - “ he made an explosive noise “ _Boom_.”

John stares at him.

“Why hasn’t there been any news about this? Shouldn’t the Council or the Guilds be doing something about this?”

“I am quite sure the Council knows about this. They’re just not very forthright with the rest of the people.” Sherlock adds, handing John a sheaf of papers.

“What’s this?”

“The reports on the first two victims,” Sherlock says. “I pinched them from Lestrade when he wasn’t looking.”

John suppresses an urge to shake his head, and takes the papers, glancing at them briefly.

“From these reports,” Sherlock begins, ”every victim has taken less and less time to succumb to it. The first victim was alone in his home, about to turn in for the evening. He took longer to die, apparently even crawling his way to the front door before he died. The second victim was a librarian, closing up for the day, and took less than that, although she still managed to scratch out the characters H-E-L-P on the ground with her nails. Our third victim was receiving money from a customer that had entered the shop, an exchange of coins which resulted in the shopkeeper’s death not longer after that.”

“I don’t see that part about the shopkeeper in the reports,” John says. “How did you know about the customer?”

“The key was left in the till, indicating that he had just opened it to keep the money and managed to lock it before the plague took over. His body was nowhere near the till, which meant he had tried to get out from behind the area but didn’t make it far.”

John pauses, letting it all sink in. Sherlock’s mind is... “Brilliant. Just, amazing, really,” John tells him admiringly. “But I still don’t understand why you needed me here for this.”

“Mrs. Hudson took my skull.”

“Your. Skull.”

“I work better when I’m talking out loud. Not something my previous Companions encouraged.”

John has met a total sum of three people in his life with Companions, but in the last day and a half he’s had more conversations mentioning their existence than he has ever had before in his lifetime. And mistaking him for one, which is getting to be an annoyance. John recalls the conversation with the strange sorcerer from the previous night. “Did you know you have an archnemesis?”

Sherlock looks at him curiously. “Which one?”

“How many do you - oh, nevermind. Tall chap, about your height, and a sorcerer to boot. He seemed overly concerned about you.”

“Ahh, _him_. He offered you gold to spy on me? Did you take it?”

“What. No, of course not!” John sputters out, indignant.

Sherlock shrugs it off. “Pity. You should have, we could have split it.” He hesitates for a moment, before continuing. “The man you were speaking to is from the Sorcerers Guild. He sits on the Council and has been annoying me for years.”

John remembers reading about the Sorcerers Guild once. Ruled by a council of ten members, they were immensely protective of anyone found to be able to wield sorcery within the allied nations. By law, every sorcerer was added to their registry, and given a rank depending on the range of their abilities.

Sherlock, he guesses, is a level four or five sorcerer, judging by the ease at which he had reviewed John’s memories and the carvings on his circlet, which he has carelessly thrown onto the desk, on top of the growing pile of scrolls and magic books. Those with limited abilities as healers, like John, are given a mark on their wrists instead, so that they could be recognised and give help to others whenever it was needed.

“Why don’t you have a Companion again?” John asks. He cannot recall having met any sorcerers of Sherlock’s level being without one before.

“They’re irritating. Pass me the green bottle, please, the one by the block of cheese,” Sherlock says. He’s peering at the glass tube that holds one of the beetles.

John hands him the unstoppered bottle, scrounging his nose up in distaste at the smell. “That’s... horrible. What is this, horse piss?”

“No, of course not - don’t shake it! - it’s frog mucus,” Sherlock takes the bottle with steady hands, trying not to let the liquid spill out.

“Frog -”

“Freshly squeezed, of course. I added a bit of my own concoction to it earlier.” Using an eyedropper, Sherlock places two drops of the liquid into the glass tube, quickly replacing the cork on it before the beetle can escape.

“I thought that Companions were meant to be of help,” John continues the earlier conversation. “To protect you.”

Sherlock scoffs at this. “I find that I am perfectly adept at taking care of myself. Also, I find them a hindrance to my studies. As you can see, I am not just a spellcaster, but I work with alchemy and science. Companions are trained from young to be brute warriors, readying themselves against any physical attacks, which I am just as qualified to handle on my own along with with magical ones.”

“Except for yesterday,” John points out. Sherlock looks briefly annoyed.

“A momentary lapse. In any case, most of the companions selected for me don’t understand that I can take care of myself, and that unless they plan to be of some use, I don’t require a giant, muscle-brained Koturi warrior standing around wasting air.” The beetle’s carapace begins to glow slightly, turning green.

In that moment, as John watches Sherlock watching the beetle, he realises why Sherlock stirs his curiosity more than any other sorcerers he’s met. Even though he’s filled with the same sort of arrogance, with all the power that he has, he still prefers to use logic and science to search for answers. The way he’s defying the Guild’s convention reminds John of himself, of the choices he has made in his life, when he refused to bend to the life that had been mapped for himself back in his home nation, and had chosen to be a healer instead.

John wonders about this man, this strange, beautiful and eccentric sorcerer who holds all this power, who would defy an entire Guild, who would kiss John in the heat of battle and leave him wanting more.

Sherlock looks pleased at the results of... of whatever he’s been doing to the beetle, and turns to John. “The beetles were from Vanath,” he declares gleefully.

“In Vanath? How do you know that?” Vanath, the largest amongst the five allied nations, is John’s birth nation. Had he not left his home to join the military - a rare choice for a nation of farmers and breeders - he would have lived his entire life learning to use his magic to coax, to nurture and convince the land to grow sufficient food for the five nations.

“Green.” At John’s blank look, Sherlock lets out a frustrated sigh. “The potion forces the origins of the magic source to reveal itself. The magical eddy in Vanath is green - anything growing or living in its soil would be marked in the same green colour, once revealed.”

John glances at the still-glowing beetle. “If they’re from Vanath, why were they found on the victims? In Lonin?” he asks curiously.

“ _Now_ you’re asking the right questions,” Sherlock tells him, sounding pleased. John’s face heats up a little at this. Coming from Sherlock, it’s almost a praise.

“Dinner?” Sherlock asks suddenly. He’s standing very, very close to John, looking down at him intently.

John feels his heart leap, his cheeks and ears heating up. “Yes.”

**\- + -**

“When you mentioned ‘dinner’, I had assumed you meant someplace nearby,” John says dryly, looking around the inn. Sherlock is casually leaning back against his seat, while darting glances out of the window to look across the road. “I didn’t think we would be going all the way to Vanath.”

Here, even at dusk, the sun still shines brightly, providing longer days for the crops to grow, where wheat and rice and corn bloom golden across rows and rows of fruits and vegetables.

Sherlock turns away from the window, and looks at John questioningly. The man is munching away at a breadstick, the crumbs forming at the side of his mouth. Sherlock wonders if he should brush it away with his fingers. Or with his mouth.

(He doesn’t stop to consider if this is appropriate; his only concern is merely which method he should choose.)

John brushes the crumbs from his mouth before speaking again, taking the decision away from him and Sherlock is a little disappointed.

“How did you find this place? I could barely even find a sign outside, and I’m the one who grew up in this district.” John reaches for another breadstick.

“I thought you might appreciate a more familiar meal since you haven’t been back here for some time.”

“Do I really want to know how you guessed that? No, wait, don’t bother. Let’s just order something and eat.”

When the food arrives, John digs in happily while Sherlock observes the street outside the window.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” John asks once he’s finished his food, and using a piece of bread to wipe up the rest of the sauce. He points at Sherlock’s barely touched food.

Sherlock is about to answer when he notices someone familiar stroll up the street. He’s wearing a large flowing coat, with a scarf wrapped around his neck. A few slow, nervous steps, and then he’s stopping in front of a shoplot, looking around furtively, before pushing the door open and disappearing into the shop.

“Come on John, time for us to go,” Sherlock declares, leaping up and dropping a few gold coins onto the table to pay for their meal.

“What? Why?” John grips Sherlock’s arm and pulls him back into his seat, surprising Sherlock with his strength.

“Sherlock, explain. Now.”

“Vanath has several breeding farms that supply insects and beetles to the shops and only one place by sorcerers to create potions.” He points across the road.

John stops him. “So you’re going to walk in, tell them you’re from the Guild and ask them to hand over their list of customers who’ve bought beetles from them in the past week?”

“Ah, but then again, I’m not from the Guild. Not today,” Sherlock tells him smugly, indicating his clothes, which he had carefully switched his robes for a pair of workmen’s clothes and a ragged-looking coat. He‘s also replaced his soft-looking leather shoes with a pair of mud-spattered boots that look equally as worn. The circlet that marks his status had been left back at the tower, and now Sherlock’s hair hangs messily over his face.

“Shall we?” Sherlock asks, and pushes open the door of the inn, stepping out into the street.

John hurries out after him.

They walk across the road but instead of going into the shop, Sherlock keeps moving past it. He steps into the alley next to the shop, pausing near a row of empty carts that are lined up near the back door.

“If you hear shouting, do not come in after me. If anyone comes out of the door, I need you to stop them,” Sherlock instructs, his voice in a low whisper.

“But -”

“Please listen to me, John. I need your help in this. Just stay here, and _don’t let anyone escape_.”

John looks back at Sherlock, eyes narrowed in speculation, before he nods. Sherlock steps away and walks out onto the street once more.

**\- + -**

John doesn’t have to wait long, before the back door slides open and a man in a long coat comes running out.

Because John has been sitting at the bottom of the steps - hunched over slightly while trying to pick something off his shoe - the man doesn’t see him until he’s tripped over John and landing on the ground.

John leaps up, intent on rushing over to help the man who’s getting to his feet when he remembers Sherlock’s instructions. Quickly, he tackles the man down once more, twisting his arm behind his back to hold him down.

He doesn’t account for the fact that the man is more limber than he thinks.

The movement is familiar, and swift, and John finds himself lying flat on the ground, the weight of the man’s arm across his neck pushing his head down onto the mud. John tries to curse at the man, but only a sputtering sound comes out from his mouth.

Suddenly the weight disappears, and John flips over to see that _Sherlock_ has pulled the man off him, and is slamming him against the outer wall of the shop.

Wheezing and trying to catch his breath while spitting out traces of mud from his mouth, John scrambles up.

“John, I need you to cast your healing spell on him.” John stares at Sherlock instead.

“What?”

Sherlock doesn’t take his eyes off the man. “Just do it. The same way you did it with the shopkeeper and the other victim.”

Still confused, John steps closer, and places one hand on the man’s arm. The man doesn’t move or flinch at the contact, and there’s no expression on his face. John casts his spell and then takes a step back.

“Done,” he informs Sherlock.

Sherlock lifts the man’s hands up, looking over them carefully. John’s not sure what he sees, but apparently he’s found what he’s looking for because he ends up smirking.

“Well, Moran. Been taking up beetle breeding lately, haven’t you?” Sherlock asks calmly. “I can see traces of them all over your fingers - nasty little things, those pincers - but then again you had no other way of handling them while you used them to kill those people. You waited for the right time, casually let one of them drop onto their sleeves or shirts, let them crawl underneath, clinging to their skins, biting on, releasing the plague into their bodies.”

Moran glares at Sherlock, but stays silent. Sherlock narrows his eyes, and then seems to come to a decision. “I hope you don’t mind if I take a look at what you’ve been up to lately, then?” he says, as he reaches up with one hand, about to press onto Moran’s forehead.

“Hang on a moment, Sherlock. What are you going to do to him?”

Sherlock looks at John quizzically. “Review his memories, of course. Find out where he’s come from, who he’s been talking to and solve the mystery,” he answers casually.

John’s eyes widen. “You can’t just go through his memories without his permission,” he says.

“I went through yours -”

“No, Sherlock, you don’t get it. I _gave_ Lestrade permission for you to do that. What you’re doing, what you’re planning to do, it’s illegal,” John points out. However, when Moran grins, looking smug, John is almost tempted to let Sherlock do it anyway.

Almost, but not quite.

Sherlock meets his stare, and John refuses to look away. Finally Sherlock relents, dropping his hand. He opens his mouth, as if about to say something. The lapse is all Moran needs, and instantly, he twists himself free and takes off running down the alley.

“Wait!” John shouts, but Moran has leaped into a portal that appears right in front of him, dropping something on the ground. The portal vanishes.

John turns to face Sherlock. “You didn’t tell me he was a sorcerer!” he accuses as Sherlock picks up the item that Moran has dropped.

“Not quite,” Sherlock replies, looking briefly at the item in his hands before pocketing it. “Come on, I know where he’s ended up in,” Sherlock tells him, practically pushing John out of the alley. “Come, John, we must hurry. The game, my friend, is _on_.”

“Wait, how did you guess that? Is this some secret way you have of figuring things out based on the colour of his shoe or his coat or his smell?”

“What? Of course not. I left a tracking spell on him.”

**\- + -**

Even with the tracking spell, they still manage to lose Moran as they chase the trail through the back alleys between the stone-washed buildings of Vanath before it cuts off abruptly.

“Would you care to explain,” John finally says, as he tries to catch his breath, “What just happened?” That last road had been really steep. He's sure it hadn’t been this bad when he was here years ago.

Sherlock looks annoyed. “Probably a blocking spell,” he mutters as he stares at the empty stretch of road in front of them. John watches as he takes out the tiny disc that Moran had dropped earlier.

“That’s not what I asked -”

“Interesting, this talisman,” Sherlock says suddenly, holding the disc up for John to see. It’s the kind that he’s seen in countless shops that sells little charms and trinkets, and this looks no different from the talismans that they have on display.

“A peddler,” Sherlock continues, “will claim that his talisman can bring luck, or increase one’s fortune. Nothing extreme, of course, but the application of simple enchantment to make the bearer think that his fortune is better. This, however,” he flips it up in the air towards John, who manages to to catch it before it lands on the ground, “is real.”

John looks closely at the round, flat disc in his hand. He guesses that it’s made of ceramic from the way it feels. It’s painted black, and there are sigils etched deeply into the flat surface, and filled in with white paint.

It’s humming with power, trapped inside.

“What does it do?” he asks, wonderingly, handing it back to Sherlock.

“Apparently our friend there used it to create a portal. These two markings here,” Sherlock points them out, his fingers brushing against John’s palm briefly, lingering at the touch, “are runes, made by a very powerful sorcerer. Anyone can use it as long as they trace the same pattern on the disc.”

John swallows as Sherlock pulls his hand away. He wishes Sherlock would stop teasing him - he thinks Sherlock is doing it on purpose, or else why all the touching and staring? - because John was probably going to end up losing his self-control.

“So Moran was _not_ a sorcerer?”

“Sorcerer? No, Moran was an ordinary man, very ordinary indeed. Too ordinary, in fact, that no one would have given him a second glance had he walked down the street, blending in with the populace.”

“Military,” John says suddenly. Sherlock looks at him in surprise, and John adds, “Moran. The move he pulled on me. It’s something that’s taught in the military.”

“Military-trained, disguised at first as a merchant, then as a workman in Lonin, and now as a politician... ah, yes, I believe I now understand why!” Sherlock smiles - no, he grins at him - and throws his arm around John, leading them away from the area.

“Sherlock, for the love of all gods, _what is happening?_ ” John demands.

“Beetles, John! The victims each died from symptoms that resembled the Diranian plague, believed to have been purged over a century ago. We find a beetle on two of the victims, containing strains of the plague. We assumed that the murderer must be breeding these things, allowing them to hide amongst the folds of the victims’ clothes, before injecting the virus into the body and killing them off. We follow the trail to Vanath, where only one place would create hybrid beetles for such a task.”

“But what about Moran? How did you end up suspecting him to be involved in all of this?”

“When I reviewed your memories at the store, Moran pretending to be a merchant, looking in through the window when you found the body. Then again, at the fourth victim’s home, Moran was outside disguised as the lamp workman.” John’s eyes widen as he now recalls the same man appearing at both places.

“So, Moran did kill those people,” John breathes out.

“Yes. But -” here, Sherlock stops walking, causing John to nearly stumble forward, “the most important question remains, however.”

“Which is?”

“Why go through all this trouble, of recreating a plague? Moran may be a killer, but he’s not the mind behind all of this.” He runs his hands through his hair, and John’s eyes track their movement, before noticing that Sherlock’s cheek is bleeding.

“What’s this?” John asks, his hand moving on its own to grasp Sherlock by the chin, tilting his head to take a closer look at the cut.

Sherlock winces. “A slight mishap in the shop. Moran threw a few jars to distract me before getting away. One of them broke on the wall behind me.”

“This is becoming quite a habit, you know,” John murmurs as he moves his hand to cover the wound to heal it. When he removes his hand a few seconds later, the wound is gone and the skin is unscathed, with a smudge of blood left behind.

“John,” Sherlock sounds hesitant, and John lets his eyes trail up, meeting Sherlock’s. The look in the other man’s eyes are oddly soft, and curious, the way he had looked the night before when he had kissed him.

He watches as Sherlock leans down, and John closes his eyes instinctively, tilting his head up in response. He can feel Sherlock’s breath, hot against his own lips, and -

“Oh, Sherlock, must you be such an exhibitionist?” A familiar voice interrupts them. John opens his eyes and hurriedly turns around, nearly yelping out loud.

John Watson has seen many, many odd things in his life. He’s been through the Rustari desert, hunted down rebels, seen enough dead bodies from the war, and he’s spent the past two days in the company of a strange sorcerer with the tendency who use frog mucus for his potions and who runs around solving crimes on his own.

The giant eyeball floating in front of him at this moment and eyeing - excuse the pun - him, is firmly added to the top of his list of odd encounters.

Sherlock, he notices, looks more annoyed than afraid.

“Are you sure you won’t reconsider a Companion, Sherlock? It seems that you’re taking to John quite nicely.” The disembodied voice seems to come from the hovering eye, which has to be the oddest thing ever.

“What do you want, Mycroft?” Sherlock snaps. John looks over at him, surprised at the familiarity he’s showing towards the eyeball.

“Wait, you know him - er, I mean, - it? This.... eye?”

Sherlock snorts. “It’s just a projection. Haven’t you got another Guild sorcerer to bully, Mycroft?”

Guild sorcerer? John thinks, but the voice speaks up again, sounding quite serious.

“I’m afraid there’s been a little... incident. You’ll need to disappear, just for a while, until it’s been dealt with,” it says.

“What’s happened?”

John can almost imagine the owner shaking his head - where ever he was - before the eye replies, “Not a word more, Sherlock. I’ll see you again in a few days.” And then the eye vanishes.

They stood there, silent, and uncomfortable after that encounter.

“We need to head back to the tower,” Sherlock says suddenly. “I’ll send Lestrade a message from there to hunt down Moran, before sorting out a few things.” With that, he opens up a portal in front of them, and they step through it.

**\- + -**

The first thing Sherlock sees when he steps away from Vanath and into his study, is Lestrade.

“What are you doing here, Lestrade?” Sherlock demands, feeling annoyed at this intrusion. “I was about to head over to the station, you needn’t have bothered with a personal trip.”

“He’s here because the Guild summons you, Adept.” Sherlock sees that a man in sorcerer’s robes has stepped out from the corner of the room. Behind him, a Koturi warrior stands guard silently, half hidden by the shadows.

Sherlock smirks. “I assure you, Victor, I’ve no intention of going for another long and boring Guild meeting.”

“It’s a little different this time, Sherlock-” Lestrade begins to say, but he’s interrupted by another sorcerer, one whom Sherlock has never met before, moving to stand next to Victor.

Her black robes mark her as a third level Adept and her eyes are cold, glittering with arrogance as she speaks. “You are to be detained and brought before the Council for crimes against the Alliance.”


	3. The Blind Adept

> _“A blade can kill just as quickly as a spell.”_
> 
> __
> 
>     _\- Old Koturi saying, roughly translated._

John stands between Lestrade and Sherlock. “Hang on, you can’t just take him!” John exclaims. “He’s done nothing wrong!”

Lestrade gives him a pained look. “I have my orders, John.”

“But why? What crimes are they going on about?” John demands. Sherlock can see Mrs. Hudson outside the room, wringing her hands and going “oh dear, dear me” while Anderson is looking on smugly.

“You are to be placed under the custody of the Guild for the assassination of Ambassador Yverek of the Rustari Nation,” the black-robed sorcerer announces. “You will come with us, with no resistance whatsoever.”

“Assassination - what?” John looks shocked. “That’s preposterous, Sherlock could never kill anyone. Your Guild has the wrong man!”

“Please don’t touch the skull, that was a very good friend of mine.” Sherlock calls out to the tall Koturi warrior who looks at the skull in her hands suspiciously. Sherlock crosses the room to lift it from her fingers, placing it back onto the mantelpiece carefully. As he does this. his fingers brush against a stone that he’s carelessly left there on the wooden surface.

“Apparently, these sorcerers have evidence, Sherlock,” Lestrade tells him. He’s looking at Sherlock, as if not quite wanting to believe it. “Evidence found in the ambassador’s chambers after his body was discovered an hour ago.”

“How was he killed?” Sherlock asks, keeping his voice casual and neutral, looking at Lestrade. From outside the room, he can hear Anderson muttering, “Why don’t you tell us that, since you were the one who did it?”, which Sherlock ignores.

“We’re still investigating it, but Yverek’s body was found in the same condition as the other earlier victims, except it was covered all over with dead beetles, just like the beetle found yesterday.” Lestrade pauses, before adding, “But, Sherlock, your magical imprints were all over Yverek’s clothes.”

“Why are you telling him all this, Inspector?” Victor snaps out. He steps up closer to Sherlock, a steel box that is covered in elaborate carvings in his hands. “Come now, Adept, and stop wasting our time. You know you cannot defy the Council’s orders.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock murmurs. He knows what is inside that box - a pair of manacles, made out of the purest Koturi steel, and engraved with the sigils.

The air in the room is filled with a mixture of shock and smugness, the latter seemingly from Anderson, as Victor snaps the manacles around Sherlock’s wrists. A long chain, connected by small, tiny steel links, hangs loosely between his bonds.

The sigils glow briefly, and the bonds tighten slightly, fitting around his wrists, and his magic disappears.

It feels like a door has slammed shut in his face, trapping him in a cocoon of emptiness. He can’t sense it anymore, even though he knows that it is still there and that the manacles are simply meant to mute the link between him and his magic.

Sherlock staggers slightly, still reeling from the sense of loss. He feels John holding onto his arm, steadying him.

“This is absurd -” John protests, but the black-robed sorcerer glares at him.

“If you cannot silence your Companion,” she snaps at Sherlock, as John mutters a “I’m not his bloody Companion” while the other sorcerer crosses his arms in annoyance, “we would be obliged to do it for you.”

Sherlock bows his head briefly, letting all the humility show on his face. “If I could have a moment with J- my Companion?” He adds the title the last minute, hoping that John would be allowed some leniency for his overly concerned behaviour if they were to believe that he really was Sherlock’s Companion. The sorcerer nods, as Sherlock turns to John, who is practically shaking with fury at the proceedings.

Sherlock steps closer, and wraps his arms around John, hugging him.

“Sherlock?” he hears John ask, the surprise evident in his voice.

“John,” Sherlock turns and whispers into his ear as he slips something into John’s coat, unseen by the others. Then, his fingers, hidden by their embrace, reach into his own coat pocket, tracing Moran's talisman. “Brace yourself.”

And he pushes John away, just as a portal opens up right beside him.

“Sher-” he hears, but the rest of his words are drowned out by the chaos that breaks out at Sherlock’s action.

“Stop him!” Victor shouts, and Sherlock hears John’s cry of “No!” as the sorcerer’s Companion raises her bow, releasing an arrow.

Suddenly John is barrelling into him, sending them both falling into the portal.

He lands on his back on the other side, wincing at the sharp pain that shoots through his body. He ignores it in favour of holding up the talisman and snapping the ceramic disc into half with both hands.

The portal shudders and disappears.

“Sherlock?” he hears John’s voice, and a scrambling noise as John rushes over to his side, kneeling over him, looking worried. “Where are we? Oh, bloody hell, you’re bleeding!”

John is staring at the arrow that’s sticking out of Sherlock’s right shoulder, courtesy of the Companion who had aimed at Sherlock earlier.

“Not that bad,” Sherlock tries to assure him, but John has his hands on it, ready to cast his healing spell.

Nothing happens.

John’s eyebrows are pressed together, confused. He tries again.

And fails.

“John -” Sherlock starts to say, but he’s cut off by John’s frustrated outburst.

“Damn this!” John swears. “I can’t - it’s like I’m trying to break through a wall. Sherlock -”

“John!” He can see when John startles at the shout, pulling back instinctively. “Listen to me. These,” Sherlock rattles the manacles around his wrists, “were forged for the purpose of _suppressing magic_. I can’t use my sorcery, just as your healing would be useless on me.”

John deflates visibly.

Sherlock is about to say more but as he shifts his body slightly, the pain from his shoulder reminds him of his condition. He sucks his breath in sharply.

“Hold on for a second, Sherlock,” John instructs, and begins to remove his coat, pulling off his undershirt and revealing the pale chest, surprising toned, hidden beneath them.

“As much as I appreciate the view, John -,” Sherlock points out weakly, in half-jest.

“Oh, shut up, you madman,” John tells him, but there’s no malice - just worry - in his voice as he tears the shirt into strips.

Sherlock watches through the haze of pain, as John leans closer to inspect the wound. “The arrow hasn’t gone through your shoulder. If I pull it out, I’ll end up tearing out the arteries and you could bleed to death.” Sherlock can feel the arrowhead that rubs against his side of his shoulder blades every time he breathes.

“Sherlock, look at me.” His eyes meet John’s, which are filled with immense concern. “I’m going to remove the arrow, but you’re going to have to trust me on this, alright?” Sherlock nods. He takes the strip of cloth that John has twisted into a thick cord and bites down on it.

Wrapping his fingers around the arrow, John uses his other hand to grip Sherlock’s unwounded shoulder for leverage, before taking a deep breath.

And _pushes_.

The pain is unlike anything Sherlock has felt before. White, hot, and blinding, his vision fills up, and Sherlock bites down onto the cloth, his howls muffled by it, before passing out.

**\- + -**

When he wakes up, the first thing Sherlock hears is the sound of running water. He opens his eyes.

Instead of the clearing they had been in previously, Sherlock notices that their surroundings have been replaced by rock, and surmises that they are in a cave of some sort. His robes, of course, are missing, although he is still wearing his breeches. Sherlock takes a deep breath, and realises that the pain in his shoulder has lessened considerably. Twisting his head to look at where the arrow had pierced his flesh, he can see that it’s no longer there. Instead, a poultice has been applied to the wound.

Sherlock sniffs at it, detecting a mixture of smells - the root and leaves of a local Koturi plant and a few other unrecognisable herbs. They all seem to have some sort of healing property, numbing the pain in his shoulder but leaving behind a cold, tingling sensation.

Carefully maneuvering himself into a sitting position without dropping the poultice, Sherlock looks around the den. He notices that a small fire is crackling away in one corner, casting a soft, orange glow around the cave. Sherlock discovers the source of the sound that initially woke him; it is a tiny crack in the wall where water is trickling out, running down along the rock onto the ground and forming a small spring that flows across the cave.

The clink of steel on steel as he moves his arms reminds him of his predicament. Sherlock lifts up one hand, eyes tracing the markings on the manacle that’s wrapped around his wrist. A symbol for each of the elements, lined in gold and linked together by a single spell. Sherlock had read the scrolls written by sorcerers that had needed such restraints once. Of what they had felt, trapped behind a wall and unable to reach their magic, the horror of never being able to feel the power again.

This is worse, much worse, than merely reading about it. His senses are slow, sluggish, as he keeps trying to cast a spell out of habit. It doesn’t work even though he remembers all the words and sigils, all of which are useless to him without his link to the magic source.

He wants to howl, to beat against that wall until it breaks, if only to taste the eddy of magic again.

Instead, his stomach growls in hunger, startling him. Distracted from his depression, Sherlock wonders where John is, then he hears footsteps approaching the area and tenses up, relaxing only when he sees the familiar face appear around the corner.

“You’re awake.”

He watches as John places the makeshift spear - made from the arrowhead that he has probably saved from Sherlock’s shoulder, and a long, straight tree branch - against the cave wall, and kneels down next to Sherlock, placing a leaf-wrapped bundle on the floor. Wordlessly he lifts the poultice, pressing slightly around the wound, before covering it once more.

“How - how are you feeling?” John asks.

“Alive, oddly. Water?” Sherlock’s voice cracks at the end and he coughs, trying to clear his throat. John pushes himself up, hurries over to the spring and bends down.

When he returns to Sherlock, his hands are cupped, and water is trickling out from the cracks between his fingers, where he can’t quite close his hands tightly enough. Holding them up to Sherlock, he tilts them slightly.

“Drink,” John orders. Sherlock obediently complies. The liquid is cool and blissfully sweet, sliding down his throat and soothing it.

“More?”

Sherlock nods, and John leaps up again.

It takes another three more handfuls before Sherlock finds himself satisfied and a little more alert. He lets John wipe at his face with a cloth, dipped in the same spring.

Finally, John sits down cross-legged next to Sherlock, lifting the bundle onto his lap. He begins to unwrap it.

“I’ve found us a little food,” he says. Sherlock can see a number of oddly-shaped fruits and roots, and some Yangon mushrooms which can be eaten raw.

Working with one functioning arm is more difficult than he had anticipated. Sherlock drops the banana twice in his attempt to peel it. The clink of the steel chain against the manacles accompanies his frustrated noise, before John takes over, at one point even scooping out the filling of one of the roots and feeding it to Sherlock with his fingers. Sherlock takes his time to lick the tips of John’s fingers clean, taking great pleasure in seeing John stutter and nearly drop the root.

Sherlock reacts instinctively, reaching out with his magic to stop the fall, before realising that he can’t anymore. He bites down on his frustration, hoping that John hadn’t seen him falter.

John, of course, is much more observant than Sherlock gives him credit for. “We need to find a way to get those off you,” John announces, once they have finished eating. “Without magic, I can’t heal the wound, which means you run a risk of infection while exposed to this environment.” He points at the poultice. “I’ve done the best I can, this should lessen the pain, and help with the healing, but it will take far longer.”

“These were made with magic, and can only be removed by magic.” Sherlock points out the trail of sigils adorning the metal. “A sorcerer will have to remove the spells fused here, and another one will use sorcery to unlock it with a key, accessible only by a member of the Council.”

John looks thoughtful. “I scouted the area outside the cave, while I was looking for food, and found a spot that overlooks the valley. There’s a mining village about a day’s walk from here.”

Sherlock sits up, alert. “A mining village?” He recalls something, a note and a steel dagger. “We need to go there at once.” He tries to get up, but John is there, his hand pushing Sherlock back down.

“You need to rest first,” he orders.

“John -” Sherlock starts, but John cuts him off.

“If you take one step out of this cave, I’ll stick that arrow into you again,” he threatens. “Sherlock, look. Don’t be mad, you’re in no condition to walk for a full day across Kotu.”

Sherlock slumps back, resigned and a little bitter. He knows John is right, but it doesn’t mean he’s about to admit that.

**\- + -**

Sherlock is sitting by the fire, watching it. Sleeping is hard for him, as the wound on his back from John pushing the arrowhead through are still healing, and he’s taken to sitting and brooding.

John’s unsure of what to say to Sherlock. He can imagine how it must feel, being cut off from the source like that. Like not being able to breath, like being empty inside.

John remembers that feeling, when he had been stuck underneath the sand. Waiting, as his dead comrades lay buried around him. Waiting, for death.

Yet, he had survived the ordeal. He’s still alive.

“We’ll find a way to get your magic back, Sherlock,” John assures him quietly. “We’ll fix all of this. Together.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at his passionate declaration and actually looks pleased.

But just before he falls asleep, John glimpses the joyless look that returns to Sherlock’s face as he continues staring into the fire.

**\- + -**

The next day, Sherlock awakes, bored. Now that he’s cut off from his magic, it drives him insane.

He’s flicking stones into the small fire, watching as tiny sparks burst and float up like a hundred fireflies. Across the room, John glares at him.

“Sherlock...”

“I’m bored.”

“You need time to heal -”

“I could just go outside for a few minutes -”

“You would get lost within moments.”

Sherlock feels insulted. “I’m no stranger to this region. Why do you think I made the talisman bring us here?”

“And the animals out there?”

“I can take care of myself -”

“With what? Your intellect and your handsome face? You haven’t any magic, remember?”

John goes very still when realises what he’s said. “Sherlock, I didn’t mean -”

“John -”

“I’m so sorry, that was tactless and rude and -”

“ _John_.” Sherlock interrupts him in a stern voice. John closes his mouth instantly.

“You think I’m handsome?”

“.... shut up.”

Sherlock can see that John’s shoulders are visibly relaxed again, and the tension has been lifted slightly. A few minutes pass, before John speaks again.

“You didn’t kill Yverek,” he says quietly. “You’re not a murderer. You wouldn’t have killed someone in cold blood.”

Sherlock sighs. “I hope you’re not saying that just to make me feel better.”

“I’m saying it because it’s the truth,” John answers, giving him a look that squeezes Sherlock’s heart and wreaks havoc in his stomach suddenly. “I believe in you.”

**\- + -**

His skin is hot, sweating, and he can barely see. He can sense it, sense the magic, but it’s so far away, and he’s burning up.

There’s a cool touch to his forehead, then his neck and the rest of his face.

 _John_ , he thinks. He might have said it aloud, because he thinks he can hear John’s voice replying as Sherlock fades in and out of consciousness, and he hears words like _infected_ and _fever_ and _don’t you bloody die_.

The last bit makes him want to laugh hysterically, before the darkness overwhelms him again.

**\- + -**

On the third day, his fever breaks.

Sherlock opens his eyes.

The first thing he sees is John, who has fallen asleep on the ground next to him, his fingers wrapped around the spear. His hair is a terrible mess, covered in the red clay of Koturi soil, and sticking out funnily in some parts. His eyes are closed, twitching slightly as he dreams of something.

He watches as John sniffles a little in his sleep, his chest heaving as he breathes.

Sherlock decides not to wake him yet. He needs time to think.

A few minutes later, he hears the sleep-heavy voice, sounding confused. “Sherlock?” John sits up suddenly, and places his hand over Sherlock’s forehead. “You’re better!”

He checks Sherlock’s wound which is no longer bleeding, although the exposed flesh is still a main concern, and wraps it with a few more strips from his shirt.

John slips outside for a moment. When he returns, he brings back some more edible roots. And some good news.

“We should start out soon, before the sun gets any higher in the sky,” John tells him.

“Good. I don’t think I’ll be missing the local cuisine around here for a while.”

They eat in companionable silence, and then John speaks up again.

“I’ve been wondering,” John begins, “why no one has managed to locate us yet. And then I found this.” He reaches into his coat pocket, pulling out an object, and holding it up for Sherlock to see. Except for the twin lines that run parallel across the surface, it looks like any ordinary stone. “You slipped this into my pocket back at the tower, didn’t you?”

Sherlock smiles slightly. “A simple enchantment,” he says, “made to hide us from watching eyes, or anyone scrying for us.”

“But, what about you?”

Sherlock points out the manacles. “Think of me being a void in this current existence. I may not be able to use magic, but it means no one can use it to find me as well.”

Best not to worry John more than necessary, he thinks, although he observes that John is handling the pressure of their situation much better than he expected.

They put out the fire and pack the leftover food, using the remaining strip of cloth from John’s shirt as a satchel. Covering their eyes against the sunlight, they step out of the cave.

They walk for several hours, following the direction of the mountains, using the position of the sun to keep them on the right path.

“Have you noticed,” John asks suddenly, “that there aren’t any creatures around here? When I was outside the cave several times, I could hear the tree-born creatures and birds, but this place seems to be lacking of land-bound animals.”

“This place is the hunting ground for the trolls,” Sherlock replies, stepping around a tree trunk that has fallen across their path. “Anything that stays here long enough gets eaten, except for the serpents and other large creatures.”

“Eaten?” John sounds worried now.

“Yes, eaten. Never happened to me before. Of course I could destroy them easily. Before this.” He shakes his wrists.

John looks at him, almost in pity.

Sherlock turns his head away; he doesn’t want to see that look. “We should hurry along to the village before sunset.”

**\- + -**

By the time the sun is beginning to sink down again in the sky, the late afternoon rays peeking through the canopy of leaves and branches of the jungle, they find themselves at the edge of the village. Smoke is rising from the roofs of the stone-walled homes, and from their position, they can see the mountain range. So large that their shadow falls across most of the jungle and the village, protecting them.

They’re about to continue making their way when suddenly, a crash is heard throughout the forest, following by the ground shaking slightly.

A large troll bursts out of the bushes and skids to a stop, when it notices Sherlock and John in the middle of the clearing. It lifts its snout into the air and sniffs. And then grins, baring all of its dirty, yellow teeth.

“You kill Marg,” it bellows.

“It speaks?” John’s eyes are nearly bulging out of his head. “And what does it mean, ‘you kill Marg’? Who’s Marg?”

The trolls licks its lips and rears back, beating its chest. “You kill! But I kill you. And eat.” It licks its lips again.

“Sherlock...”

“I might have run into one or two of them a few days ago. When I was here, practising my magic.”

“Practising - Sherlock, have you been using the trolls as target practice?”

The troll advances a step, and John can see that it’s holding onto a very large club, covered in spikes. “Now I kill you.”

Then it charges at them.

Both of them leap out the way. Sherlock rolls on the ground and comes up with his hands balled up in fists.

He’s facing one of the most ruthless creatures in Kotu with nothing but his own wits. With magic, he could take it on easily, but now it’s a matter of distracting him long enough to let John strike at it with his spear.

Reaching down, Sherlock picks up a rock and throws it at the troll who’s currently advancing on John. The large rock lands on the troll’s head.

Slowly, it turns around, face twisted with fury. Sherlock throws another rock, but it’s more agile than he had originally assumed, and dodges the rock.

“Look out!” John shouts, even as he lunges, missing the troll’s side but barely even grazing the skin. The troll snarls and snaps one large, hairy arm out, sending John spinning onto the ground, the spear flying out of his hands.

Seeing his chance, Sherlock runs towards it, scrambling on its back and holding on to its neck, digging his nails in. The troll roars, and tries to shake him off. Quickly, he winds the chain connecting his manacles around the troll’s neck tightly, trying not to slip off its back. A sharp pull, and he is rewarded by a choking noise from the troll, and tightens his hold again, trying to cut off its air supply.

Something flies out from between the trees, sinking into the troll’s head with a sickening crunch, followed by several other objects whizzing past them and striking the troll.

The troll stops struggling, dropping to its knees and landing face first onto the ground.

Breathing hard and feeling relieved, Sherlock unwraps the chain from around the neck and manages to stand up. He prods the body with one foot and then pushes it over onto its back.

A steel dagger lay embedded in between its eyes and several arrows are sticking out of its chest.

Suddenly two men step out from behind one of the trees, and they calmly walk into the clearing. Sherlock can see that John is still looking apprehensive, but Sherlock knows that they’re in safe hands now. These are trained warriors, meant to protect the mining village, probably out on a dusk patrol.

One of them places his foot against the troll’s face and bends down, yanking the dagger out. He wipes it on the grass several times before pushing it back into its sheath that’s attached to his belt.

“The _mukta_ kill fast, and are without mercy. Without magic or weapons, one cannot hope to defeat it properly,” he informs them, then grins at Sherlock suddenly. “You fight well, for one not born to the blade.”

John is being helped up by the other warrior who’s slightly taller and darker-skinned than the first. Sherlock sees that John’s face is bruised, but otherwise, he’s unharmed.

“We’re looking for someone who can help us - my friend, he’s injured,” John says.

The tall warrior nods, and leads them the rest of the way into the village, where a small crowd of people have begun to gather, watching their arrival.

“Our healer will help you,” another warrior said, pointing towards an approaching man. He’s a little shorter than the rest of the warriors and doesn’t seem to share the same physique as the well-toned Koturi.

“Mike?” John asks in disbelief. The man hears him, and looks over, recognition dawning on his face. With a huge grin, the man pushes past the crowd and is hugging and clapping John on his back.

“John! This is a surprise! I heard you were back, but I didn’t think you’d come all the way here.” Mike is saying, but John pulls him to one corner and begins to whisper to him furiously.

A few minutes later, they return to Sherlock, and Mike looks over the manacles. “I know someone who might be able to help break these. Come on, I’ll take you to the forge.”

“They’re bound by magic, mate. We need a sorcerer to break them, not just any normal smith,” John points out.

“You’re in luck, then,” Mike tells him. “Our blacksmith is both.”

John trades surprise glances with Sherlock, who looks too impassive. John begins to feel a suspicion growing.

He lets Mike heal his bruises first, before they make their way through the village, weaving through the dozens of warriors who are going about their daily duties. Mike explains that the warriors guard the village while the miners are off in the mountains, digging for steel, iron and gold. Once extracted, the raw materials are heated up and forged into weapons, while the gold is smelted into coins to be used in trade.

A young Koturi woman walks past with a basket filled with wild fruit held against her chest. She nods at Mike, eyes Sherlock suspiciously, and smiles at John coyly before continuing her way down the path, her steps graceful and light, belying the giant broadsword that’s strapped across her back.

“Very pretty. And formidable-looking,” John comments to Mike, who laughs.

“Miriam has been training as a Companion since she was five. She’s due to take her final test in the Guild next month, and hopefully be assigned to a sorcerer. If she can be paired with a high level Adept, the reward from the Guild will keep her family comfortable for life,” Mike explains. He waves his hands around the village. “Many here are trained from an early age, hoping for such an honour.”

“Trained as warriors, you mean?” Sherlock speaks up suddenly. “But why not send them to learn magic instead of beating each other around with sticks?”

John groans inwardly. Sometimes he wishes that Sherlock would learn some tact, and he looks at Mike nervously.

Mike eyes the tall man, but when he speaks, it’s without any anger or insult. “We have an old Koturi saying, ‘A blade can kill just as quickly as a spell’,” he quotes patiently.

Suddenly, John stops and stares.

“What in the world is _that_?” He gestures at the bright pink creature, which is wrapping its trunk around one of the children, lifting a laughing boy up and onto its neck.

Mike laughs, and the tension from the earlier topic breaks. “Yes, a rather unusual discovery. The villagers found the elephant wandering around recently, lost and apparently without a herd. It’s quite popular with the children, as you can see,” Mike explained. “I think they’ve adopted him as a pet, which was worrying at first. But it’s really quite a gentle creature.”

John notices Sherlock looking guilty.

“Rather unfortunate colour, so I suppose it’s for the best that it doesn’t return to the wild,” Mike adds.

Sherlock clears his throat.

“Is it much further to the forge, Mike?” he asks hurriedly.

“Just around this bend,” Mike tells him cheerfully, and they continue walking.

John leans closer to Sherlock, and drops his voice into a whisper. “Really, Sherlock? Pink?”

“Shut up, John.”

**\- + -**

The forge is modestly set up by the stream, that runs through the village. There’s an oddly-shaped funnel set up on top of the stone building, where smoke is lazily rising out of, drifting upwards.

“A blacksmith who can handle magic.” John is intrigued. “Is he from this village, Mike?”

Mike shakes his head as he opens the door. “She, actually. Came to us a month ago, when our own blacksmith decided to trade in his hammer and move to Lonin.”

Sherlock picks up the change in pronoun as they step through the door, confirming his suspicions and he twists to the side in time as something heads straight for his face.

The dagger sinks into the wooden door, right where Sherlock had been standing a moment ago.

“Are you insane?” John yells at the woman, who has Sherlock pinned on the floor, face down as she straddles his legs, a dagger held to his neck.

“Hello, darling,” she says sweetly into Sherlock’s ear. “Losing your touch already?”

Within seconds, Sherlock has flipped her around onto her back, pressing his arm across her chest, the point of the dagger below her chin.

“Shall we try that again?” he asks, as she grins.

“Mmm, sexy,” she tells him coyly. “Shall we take it somewhere more private, then?”

John looks between her and Sherlock, his eyes narrowing. “Should I leave the two of you alone?” he asks, trying not to sound bitter.

Sherlock pushes himself off the woman, and holds his hand out to help her up. “Don’t be ridiculous, John.”

“I gather you both know each other,” Mike comments. He’s standing safely in one corner watching the proceedings in amusement.

The other two trade glances, and John sees Sherlock’s lips curl into a knowing smile.

“This must be John Watson.” She walks closer to John, who takes a step back in response, not quite trusting her. “Oh, your new Companion is _adorable_. I suppose this was why we’ve never worked out, Sherlock.”

“I am _not_ his Companion. And who,” John manages out, between clenched teeth, “the bloody hell are you?”

Sherlock is looking at her with something akin to admiration. “This, is Irene Adler. She was my Companion, or at least she was, before she tried to kill me.”

“You know I missed on purpose, my dear,” she tells him.

“She tried to kill you?” John feels a headache coming. He’s beginning to miss the war. At least he knew who his enemies were then.

“Failed, of course. Are you feeling well, John? You’re starting to look a little pale.” Sherlock asks, and he actually sounds concerned.

“I’m fine,” John snaps. “Can we, look, let’s get those things off you, and we can figure out what to do next?”

Sherlock looks briefly startled, but he nods. “Yes, yes. Irene, a little help, please?”

Irene is watching him, her eyes as sharp as a hawk’s, and there’s a knowing look in them, before she turns back to Sherlock, holding out her hands.

Wordlessly, Sherlock lifts his arms and shows her the manacles.

As Irene peers at the sigils and begins to look through her tools, John finds himself excusing himself and stepping outside.

He really has a headache, he thinks, as he leans back against the stone wall of the forge, letting the bright afternoon sun warm his face. Seeing the ease that Sherlock had around his ex-Companion made him uncomfortable, and he doesn’t know why.

He hears the door to the forge open, and then someone settles against the wall next to him.

“I didn’t know you were … with him.” Mike’s voice is hesitant.

“I’m not. Well, not actually.” John sighs. “I don’t know. Are you pissed, though?” Mike had hinted many times to John that his sister was a beautiful woman and had offered to set John up with her. John had declined several times, leading Mike to assume that John had some girl waiting for him back in Vanath.

Mike laughs. “Mary ended up with another bloke in the end. She’s happy with him.” His eyes soften at the mention of his sister. “I’m happy for them.”

“That - that’s good.” John feels relieved.

Mike is silent for a moment. “The war changed you, didn’t it?” he asks seriously. John ponders the question for a moment.

“No,” he finally answers. “Losing everyone changed me.”

**\- + -**

When Sherlock finally emerges from the forge a few minutes later, the manacles are gone, and he’s rubbing his wrists, looking annoyed. Irene follows him out.

“That was not easy,” she informs Mike, “and I had to remove half the sigils before removing the enchantment. Even then, breaking the lock took some effort.” She looks drained, John can see, and she’s swaying a little on her feet. “Mike?”

Mike takes her hands into his to start the healing, and John glances at Sherlock, who is still favoring his shoulder.

“I should take a look at that,” John tells him. Sherlock nods, and removes his coat.

“Mate, I’m sending Irene back to rest. Will you both be alright here?” Mike asks suddenly. “Won’t be long, it’s just around at the back of the forge.” John nods, and the two of them leave.

John carefully focuses on unwrapping the makeshift bandage, not wanting to look at Sherlock whom he can feel staring at him intensely. He inspects the wound and is relieved to find that it’s not infected. However, blood is leaking slowly from the reopened wound, which probably occurred when the manacles were being removed.

Breathing deeply, John presses both his hands around the wound. The flesh begins to join together, slowly sealing the gap until only a faint scar is left behind. John can’t do anything about that; it’s been exposed for far too long.

Sherlock lets out his breath, which John didn’t realise he had been holding back throughout the healing.

“I can feel it again,” Sherlock says quietly. “My magic. Your spell.”

John swallows, his hand still warm against Sherlock’s skin. When Sherlock bends his head down, as if about to kiss him, John pulls away abruptly and turns away, his heart squeezing painfully. Sherlock looks like he’s about to say something when he’s interrupted by Mike, who has returned to fetch them.

Mike chatters on, and invites them over to his home to rest before going on their journey. That night, tired and full from the first proper warm meal in days, the two of them retreated to the guestroom in Mike’s home, where two pallets have been placed on the ground for them.

John tries sleeping, thinking that his exhaustion will send him off immediately. But his eyes are wide awake, looking up at the stone ceiling. He glances over to where Sherlock is lying down, his back towards John. His body looks too still, and John suspects that he’s not asleep either.

A few minutes of silence pass before his curiosity begins to stir. 

“Sherlock?” he calls out softly. There’s no reply, but he continues on.

“Irene... she was your Companion, right?” Still silence, and John wonders if he should reach out and shove at Sherlock to get a reaction, when there’s a grunt of acknowledgement.

John grins. “I thought you said they were all dim-witted Koturi brutes?”

An answering snort. “She’s not Koturi.” Sherlock turns over. He’s now looking straight at John, who’s feeling a little trapped by those eyes that are usually flashing between grey and light blue but are now reflecting the light from the lamp.

A few moments pass, then John shoves at Sherlock with his foot. Gently. “Well?” he asks. “Where’s she from?” Sherlock hadn’t seem to want to talk about Irene earlier during their meal, which struck him as odd, considering how willing Sherlock is to offer information on everyone else, including John.

Sherlock lets out a sigh, and sits up, looking away from John. “After my last few complaints to the Guild to provide me with a Companion who would be more challenging for me, they sent me Irene.” He smirks at the memory. “She turned up in my study and sat in my chair waiting for me. Without any clothes on.”

John can’t help but raise his eyebrow at this.

“She called it her ‘battle-dress’, but what she had done was to provide me with no ammunition or information to use against her. I had to cover her up, of course - Mrs. Hudson would have had a fit had we let her wander around nude - and eventually she impressed me enough to keep her on.”

John’s face must have been a mirror of what he was feeling then, because Sherlock turns to look at him, and laughs. “Nothing improper, John. She did try to, several times, but her mind was more fascinating than her body.”

“Why did she try to kill you?” John asks, resting his head on one hand.

“For the most simple reason in the world, John. Money.” Sherlock looks a little disappointed now. “She was a hired assassin and had infiltrated the Guild. Irene convinced them that she was the best solution to their problem of finding me a Companion.”

“So she was hired to kill you?”

“She was hired to create chaos in the Guild. Irene said she never knew the motive behind the person who paid her, only the instructions that he had.”

“She said that she missed you on purpose though.” John pointed out.

“She thinks that, but unfortunately for her, I had already known that she wasn’t from the Warriors Guild, and that she had an ulterior motive.” Sherlock pauses. “Mycroft was livid, of course, but he wanted her interrogated and broken to find out who had sent her.”

“But you hid her away.”

Sherlock glances at him. “To summarise the story, I did. I helped her escape, and the last I had heard was that she was in Kotu, away from prying eyes.”

John stares at him. “So you knew she would be here. In this village.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

“Suspected,” Sherlock corrected. “Mike confirmed it when he called the blacksmith ‘she’.”

“Did you -” John begins, before hesitating again. “Would you have ended up sleeping with her?” Sherlock stares at him now. “If, you know. If she hadn’t tried killing you, but was your Companion, without any deceit.”

Another moment of heavy silence, before Sherlock replies. “No.”

John’s not sure why he’s relieved at this admission, but he is. He lets out his breath, which he hadn’t realise he had been holding back.

Sherlock, he notices, is looking at John’s mouth rather intently, before his eyes flicker away, the expression on his face heavy with guilt for a brief moment.

If John hadn’t been staring back at Sherlock, he would have missed the look.

Sod this, he thinks, and he surges upright, holding onto Sherlock’s knees for purchase before leaning in and pressing his lips against Sherlock’s.

John parts his lips, flicking his tongue out to lick the bottom lip, tasting the sweetness of the fruit from earlier still lingering on Sherlock’s lips. He feels Sherlock opening his mouth, a quiet gasp, and John slips his tongue in, licking his way in, tasting _everything_.

Sherlock’s legs are in the way, and John pushes at them impatiently, not wanting to break the kiss, and he feels them part willingly as Sherlock pulls him closer.

In this position, with John kneeling over Sherlock, between his legs, he has the height advantage, and he uses this with relish. He holds Sherlock’s face in his hands, kissing him deeply. He can feel Sherlock’s hands sliding up his hips, gripping them to pull John closer.

As John’s body presses against Sherlock’s, he can feel himself getting hard, his erection pressed against Sherlock’s stomach. Sherlock, it seems, has felt it, judging from the way his eyes widened. Reluctantly, John pulls away to catch his breath, resting his forehead against Sherlock’s and breathing heavily. “Oh gods, Sherlock -” he begins, and then Sherlock is kissing him again.

Sherlock kisses like he analyses everything, mapping every single part of John’s mouth, slowly, curiously. He presses one, then two, kisses on John’s neck, moving his mouth downwards towards John’s chest while slowly unbuttoning his coat.

John is feeling dizzy with arousal from the careful way that Sherlock’s touching him. Cool air hits his shoulders and chest before he realises that Sherlock has pushed the coat off his shoulders, and he emits a whine when Sherlock sucks on his nipple, before soothing over it with his tongue.

Sherlock does the same with his other nipple, while John holds on, tangling his fingers in Sherlock’s dark locks. When Sherlock bites down on the skin at one point, John tightens his grip and pulls Sherlock up, and glares at him.

John’s protests die on his lips as he glances at Sherlock’s face, illuminated by the lamp. His eyes are filled with a combination of arousal and desperation and need.

It’s an expression he’d never expect to see from Sherlock.

“Hold on,” John whispers, as he releases Sherlock, pulling away slightly before kneeling down.

He can hear Sherlock’s surprised sound, followed by “John, what are you doing?” but he’s ignoring that in favour of unbuttoning Sherlock’s pants, and pulling his cock out. John stares at it for a moment - he’s never done this before - and takes a deep breath before sliding his mouth over it.

John hears Sherlock cry out in shock at the sensation, but as much as he would have loved to have seen Sherlock’s expression, he was a little preoccupied. He finds that he doesn’t dislike it - Sherlock’s cock is long and thick, tasting a little of sweat. He does gags when Sherlock pushes deeper, the head hitting the back of his throat, and John hurriedly pulls off a little.

A few seconds later, John leans closer again and covers the head with his lips, sucking at it slowly and pulling off every once in a while to let his tongue tease below it. Sherlock has followed John’s command and is trying not to slide back down onto the floor and has both hands placed on John’s head. Sherlock begins to move his hips, thrusting into John’s mouth.

When Sherlock finally comes, flooding his mouth with warmth, his hands gripping John’s hair painfully.

John tries to swallow some of the bitter liquid in his mouth, and makes a face, turning and spitting it onto the ground. “Sorry, sorry,” he says hurriedly, in case Sherlock is offended by the action, but suddenly he’s being pulled up into a sitting position, his pants being pushed down and a hand wrapped around his cock.

It’s too much, and all it takes is a few strokes before John is coming all over Sherlock’s hand, some of it spilling onto the ground.

John is trying to catch his breath when Sherlock kisses him, practically licking the taste of himself out of John’s mouth.

“John, John, you marvelous thing,” he’s saying in between kisses, and John’s heart skips at the endearing words.

Finally, they pull apart, lying back down next to each other. John smiles at Sherlock, feeling oddly happy when he receives a soft, answering look in return, before he succumbs to his exhaustion and falls asleep.

**\- + -**

The next day they wake up to Mike barging into the room urging them to wake up before he staggers out backwards with his hand over his eyes.

The room door slams shut again.

Sherlock nudges John to get up. John, who is lying on top of Sherlock, his arse bare to the world, continues to drool on his shoulder, snoring lightly. Sherlock sighs, and strokes his hair once, before pushing him off gently.

Last night had been interesting. Sherlock had still been wrapped up in his magic, which had flowed back to him, embracing him like a lost son once Irene had been able to break the manacles. When he had found John outside the forge and tried to kiss him, only to find his advances being rejected, he had been confused.

It was only when John had begun probing him about Irene’s past that Sherlock realised that John had been jealous of Irene. Sherlock wanted to find out more, but then John had kissed him. And unlike their first kiss, it hadn’t stopped there, but continued on to something that was. That was... complicated.

Sherlock likes John, he’s intrigued by him, fascinated by his loyalty and curious about what he would do or say next. Not that Sherlock can guess it wrong, but it’s safe to say that John Watson is an easy man to predict, until he is not.

And it seems, at most times, he is not.

A succession of quiet, nervous knocks on the door breaks into his thoughts suddenly.

“I hope you’re both decent right now. I need to talk to you urgently.”

Sherlock manages to wake John up, who looks at Sherlock curiously.

“Give us a minute, Mike,” Sherlock calls out, before gesturing at John’s nakedness.

John blushes immediately, but quickly gets up. They are both fully dressed by the time Mike knocks on the door again.

“The Guild has sent a message to all the outlying villages, including this one, with your descriptions,” Mike informs them. John looks at Sherlock in dismay, as Mike continues on. “Some of those who saw you enter the village yesterday are out at the mines or on a hunt, so they won’t find out until they get back. Irene’s disappeared, but she left a message that she’s visiting an old friend, although I think she knows that she’ll be interrogated if they link you both to her.”

“What about you?” John asks.

Mike makes a face. “Can’t be helped. Plenty of people saw me with you, and know that we’re friends. I can deny knowing anything about what happened, but you need to leave as soon as possible.”

Sherlock nods, and stands up. “We can leave now, but for your safety, Mike, it might be best if you could tell us where there’s an abandoned home here? Best not to leave the traces of my magic in your home, in case the Guild comes around looking for us here.”

As they’re about to leave, Sherlock sees that Mike is quietly asking John something. He strains to listen, and hears the words “Are you sure it wasn’t him” and John’s reply of “I’d bet my life on it. It’s not him.”

Sherlock feels that tiny slip of gratitude mixing into his heart along with the other emotions that he felt about John lately.

They slip out of Mike’s home, noticing that the sun is already halfway up towards the middle of the sky, and follow his directions to the empty house. Once they’re inside, Sherlock opens himself up to his magic once more, drinking in all that he has missed.

The portal to Miyn opens, and they step through it.


	4. A Scandal in The Alliance

> _The Sorcerers Guild is guided by their Council, consisting of two members from each of the five nations. Although they claim to have no ties with their nations’ leaders, it is known that the Council controls the Alliance, and not the other way round._
> 
>     
> 
> _\- Excerpt from **A Scandal in The Alliance** , John Watson (Unpublished Works)_
> 
>   
> 

This is the first time John has been to Miyn. He has studied about it in school, of course, and he’s heard stories from the other Healers who have been there. He has seen the paintings of a beautiful and ethereal-looking city built entirely from magic.

Reading about it and actually _seeing_ it are two entirely different things, he realises, as he tries not to gape like a tourist when he and Sherlock walk through the archways.

They’re both wearing grey cloaks which Sherlock had conjured up. Sherlock had explained that they were fashioned after the ones worn by the scholars in the Central Archives. The large cowls hiding their faces would provide enough cover for them to make their way quietly through the city without attracting unnecessary attention.

They make their way through the suspended walkways that connect the buildings together and Sherlock points the walkways out to John. According to Sherlock, the streets below are meant for wheeled transports and livestock to move about on, while the pathways are meant to ease the passage between the buildings. John notices that the buildings are hollowed out in the middle to provide a large and airy tunnel for the paths to cut through, allowing the travelers using the path to continue their walk uninterrupted.

Sherlock’s explanation on the way the streets and pathways are designed begins to make sense.

“I don’t understand why you couldn’t have, you know,” John makes a swooping motion with his hands, “ opened up a portal right in the chambers. Or near it.”

“Traveling by a portal spell is limited,” Sherlock tells him quietly, while keeping his head down. “We can only go where we’ve been before, by focusing on a spot, or a landmark from that area. Also, if a portal had appeared near the ambassador’s home, the Guild would know we were here immediately.”

Instinctively, John presses his hand against his coat pocket, hidden underneath the cloak, relaxing only when he feels the hard shape of the talisman which Sherlock had given him, shrouding them from the Guild’s tracers. Without that, they would have been discovered instantly.

The city is quiet, almost too quiet for John’s taste. He’s used to the loud noises of Lonin, with all the crowd and traffic. Even in Rustari, the sound of the wind was a constant companion. Here, everything is in near silence.

Even the people walk slowly, quietly, barely a word heard in their conversation. No one seems to be in a hurry, and even when John peeks over the low wall to look at the carriages, he notices that the horses are pulling them at a slow pace.

Sherlock, he notices, is somewhat calmer, and quieter here. He wonders if it’s the effect of the magical atmosphere in the city.

A few more twists and turns on the pathway, and just as they about to leave another archway that’s been created within the body of another building, John finds himself being dragged to the side, into a darkened alcove.

He is about to protest when he feels a hand clamped over his mouth, and then he hears Sherlock’s voice, whispering quickly into his ear.

“We’re here, but there are guards, two of them, standing outside the building.” Sherlock releases his hold on John’s mouth, and he slowly peeks out of the alcove. He sees the two guards, dressed in the uniform of the Rustari militia, standing tall and firm, their hands rested on the hilt of their broadswords which are hanging off their belts.

John pulls back into the alcove again. “How do we get past them?” he whispered back.

Silence, and then Sherlock replies, no trace of humour in his voice. “How good is your Rustari?”

**\- + -**

Sherlock lands on the balcony, and nearly knocks over the ceramic pot that’s been placed near the edge. He catches it in time, spilling a little water onto the floor.

Sherlock holds his breath, waiting.

No one comes running out shouting, so he assumes that the no one has heard the noise. Relieved, he tips the pot back into position, and sidesteps the small puddle.

He checks the doors that lead out to the balcony, which are unlocked. He opens them slowly, slipping in without a noise, his footsteps muted by the thick carpeting in the room.

Sherlock walks around, taking in everything. The tray that’s been left there for days, untouched since the assassination. Several scrolls and important-looking parchments are left scattered around the table, and a signet sits in the middle of a melted lump of wax.

A quick rapping on the front door alerts him, and he hurries over to open it, and drags in the unfamiliar man who’s dressed in a Rustari uniform, the stitching of the eagle’s claw on his shoulder marking him as a Captain.

“I thought you didn’t make in,” John hisses out from behind the Rustari face, shrugging off Sherlock’s grip on his arm. “We don’t have long. One of the guards didn’t seem convinced by my cover.” He points at his disguise.

Sherlock waves his hand, and the vision of the Rustari captain flickers and falls away, revealing John once more, who is still wearing the same exasperated look on his real face.

“We’ll have enough time, John,” Sherlock assures him, before leading him into another room.

John stops at the entrance of the room, visibly shocked, and Sherlock can understand why. The room looks like it has been struck by a whirlwind; the bedsheets are a mess, and the pillows are strewn all over the place, the feathers sticking out of the ripped covers. Broken pieces of ceramic lie everywhere, and there are traces of dried blood still stuck on them. Clothes have been pulled out of the majestic cupboard that stands at one side of the room, and a scarf, soiled and dusty, sticks out from beneath the pile. Sherlock uses his toe to prod at the pile, and bends down, sniffing at them.

“Bloody hell, Sherlock, it looks like a battle happened here,” John is saying. “I don’t understand why haven’t they cleared the mess yet.”

Sherlock stands up. “I have my suspicions, but -” he begins to say, but then an odd click alerts him. He spares barely even a second’s thought before leaping out the way as a small arrow passes through the spot where he had been standing, sticking out of the floor.

He rolls onto his feet and manages to push himself upright to see Moran landing on top of the pile of clothes, a crossbow in his hands, which he pushes another bolt into before aiming it at Sherlock.

“Sherlock, move!” John shouts, before he launches at the assassin, knocking his arm aside and disrupting his aim as the catch is released. Sherlock flings his hand towards the oncoming bolt with a shield spell, but the steel-tip slices through it, the tiny fletching singing through the air as it sinks into the bedpost beside him.

He looks over to see that John is struggling to get the crossbow away from Moran, knuckles white from gripping onto the weapon. As Sherlock is about to help him, John manages to smash the handle of the crossbow into Moran’s face, causing him to release his hold on it. He staggers backwards, just as John grabs him by the neck, kneeing Moran in the face, then flipping him onto the ground and knocking him out cold.

Sherlock checks through Moran’s pockets and finds nothing. The assassin’s eyes are closed, his hands hanging limply by his sides, but Sherlock can tell from his breathing pattern that he’s conscious and waiting for the moment they let down their guard.

“Check his crossbow, there might be something there,” Sherlock tells John, who nods and hurries over to pick up the weapon, examining it.

He glances once more at the small pouch that is hanging off the side of Moran’s belt, containing the bolts for the crossbow. Sherlock has already gone through it, finding only a few bolts, and nothing else.

Unless...

He’s struck by an idea, and quickly he rips the bag off the belt, and is about to use the sharp end of the bolt to rip open the seams at the edge of the flap, when he hears shouting outside the corridor leading to the chambers. Someone is banging on the door, and he glances towards that direction briefly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock sees a slight twitch of Moran’s fingers and he’s barely managed to cast his spell before the man takes a swing at his face.

A cry of pain escapes from Moran’s mouth as his fist connects with the temporary shield that Sherlock has created, and he’s cradling his hand in agony. Sherlock is about to launch at Moran when the sound of splintering wood distracts him.

Sherlock glances over his shoulder to see the doors to the ambassadorial chambers burst open as several Rustari guards barge into the rooms, armed with crossbows and swords. One of them catches sight of the group in the bedchambers and shouts in Rustari, aiming his crossbow at them - just as Moran leaps at Sherlock. He flips Sherlock around and shoves him up against the bedpost, while his fingers try to grab back his pouch-

Moran stiffens, a surprised look crossing his face before he slumps over Sherlock, unmoving. Sherlock pushes him off and discovers several bolts sticking out of Moran’s back. Through the doorway, he can see that guards who had sent the first barrage of arrows are reloading their crossbows once more.

“Sherlock!” John hisses urgently. Sherlock flicks his wrist to force the door shut and lifts his other hand to send the large cabinet sliding across the room to barricade it.

Breathing heavily, Sherlock leans back against the post.

Suddenly John is there, his face filled with worry and anger.

“Sherlock - oh gods, Sherlock - don’t. Don’t do that again,” he’s saying, and Sherlock feels fingers on his face, his neck, touching him, checking to see if he is well and truly alive.

“I don’t think Moran is up for another round,” Sherlock tells him, and John pulls back and stares, trying to frown at him, but the corners of his mouth are twitching upwards, as if he’s suppressing his own laughter.

The sudden thump against the door that sends the cabinet shifting slightly brings them back to their situation.

“A portal would be very nice right now, Sherlock,” John tells him sternly. Sherlock grins at him, and waves his hand, opening one immediately.

**\- + -**

They manage to end up a distance away from the embassy. No one comes through the shimmer of space, demanding their arrest, and it’s only when Sherlock releases the spell does John allow himself to breathe easily again, relieved.

They adjust their cowls and continue walking, this time in the opposite direction away from where they had first started their journey earlier. Sherlock, John realises, is quiet, and John wonders if he’s injured, wishing that he had cast a quick healing spell. Moran had not been an easy man to defeat, and John knows that they had been lucky.

They pass by a small area that has several large ceramic pots not unlike the ones that had been in the Ambassador Yverek’s rooms. These look less ostentatious, and simple - dark brown and glazed minimally, containing several water blooms. A small tiny robin is perched on the rim of the pot, glancing into the water as if to admire its crest.

As they walk past the pots, John notices that Sherlock pauses for a while to leans over it, pretending to admire the white lotus blooms that float inside it. But when he steps away, all that remains is a single bloom, with one petal curled in, floating on top of the water.

They continue walking, trying to act as if they aren’t in a hurry. John resists the urge to check behind them, half-expecting someone to come running down the path after them.

Minutes later, they’ve made their way towards the lower part of the city and are standing in a shadowed corner near the bread shop. Sherlock slips in for a minute and when he returns, he hands John a odd-looking bun that’s half-wrapped in paper, still warm from the oven.

John realises with a start that he hasn’t had anything to eat since last night. His stomach grumbles a little, as if now reminded that he’s actually hungry and he gratefully he takes the bun from Sherlock.

When John bites into his bun, he’s surprised by the sweet flavour of meat and vegetables. By the time he’s done with his, he almost wishes that he could have another, but that would mean exposing Sherlock once more to those who were hunting for him.

A few seconds pass in companionable silence, as Sherlock finishes up his bun, before John gives in to his curiosity. “So what were you doing earlier? With the flowers, I mean.”

“Leaving a message for a friend. She’ll meet us here soon.”

John shoots him look of suspicion. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

Sherlock says nothing, and then John hears someone clearing their throat, announcing their presence.

John turns around to see that a woman, much younger than himself, is standing in front of them. Slender and pale and almost delicate, she’s dressed in sorcerer’s robes, although instead of a circlet around her head, a small pearl hangs from a silver chain, resting in the middle of her forehead.

“Sherlock?” She asks hesitantly, trying to peer at their faces, which are still heavily shrouded by the cowl.

“Not so loud, Molly. Is there anywhere safe we could talk?”

She hesitates, and then nods before leading them through a series of walkways on the bottom part of the city, circling out towards the another row of buildings that are smaller and built closely together, like townhouses. There’s a brief, tensed moment when they cross the open street just as a carriage turns round the corner, but Molly manages to pull them into her home before the carriage comes any closer.

When they’re safely in her home and seated on her couch, the tea tray resting on the low table, she listens to them patiently. Sherlock rattles off a brief summary of their predicament, which John adds to with his own view of the events. Once they’re done, she looks a little wild around the eyes.

John hopes that Sherlock is right, and that she doesn’t turn them in.

When she finally speaks, she’s looking at Sherlock with a small, sad smile. “I never thought I’d see it again, you know. The folded lotus.”

“You were the only one who would understand that.”

John must have let his confusion show, because Molly then turns to him to explain.

“My mother used to tell me stories about how the water sprites in Irlan would send messages to their loved ones in a lotus, floating down the rivers, with one petal folded in. When I was growing up, I -” she hesitates, before continuing, “I gave one to Sherlock.” She doesn’t look at either of them.

John swallows. “Oh, right. Well, that was a brilliant message,” he says hurriedly. Sherlock is looking oddly at him now, and he needs to get away for a moment.

He excuses himself, citing a need to clean himself up after the altercation in the embassy and hurries towards the direction of the bathroom that Molly has given him directions to.

When he reaches there, and finally closes the door, locking it before leaning against it, he slides down onto the ground. He tries to ignore the way his stomach is twisting inside, the way he irrationally feels suspicious towards Molly who seems lovely despite him knowing her for only a few moments.

It’s the same feeling he had felt when he had encountered Irene. John recognises his emotions now for what they are.

Jealousy.

It’s such a ludicrous notion that he laughs quietly to himself, shaking his head. Why would he be jealous of Sherlock - after all, it’s not like he _owns_ Sherlock or is dating him or is...

Oh.

He might, and quite possibly and irrationally, be in love with Sherlock Holmes.

Who, from the looks of it already has someone else in his life.

**\- + -**

When John has left, in search of the bathroom, a silence descends upon them.

Sherlock observes that Molly’s home has undergone some change. When Molly’s father and brothers had lived here, this had been their drawing-room. But now that they have moved to another part of the city, he notices the delicate female touches left here and there by Molly, stamping out the heavier traces of masculinity that had once filled this room.

He frowns at a row of delicate Rustari hair ornaments on the mantelpiece. They’re the kind that are usually worn by Rustari girls during their courting phase. Apparently there’s someone in Molly’s life, he thinks, judging by the intimacy of the gift. Someone who seems to have been here recently, considering how shiny and new the ornaments are.

“How’s the weather been in Miyn?”

“Oh, lovely, as always. A bit quiet, of course.”

“Ah.”

The awkward silence continues.

“I’m seeing someone, by the way,” she says quickly. “He’s - he’s a lovely person. Nice.”

“Oh.”

“He’s gone back to Lonin, of course. But he would have loved to have met you,” she continues.

“I’m sure we would have had a grand old time.” He continues pacing around the room

“I didn’t expect you to come to _me_ for help.” Molly changes the subject suddenly. “Why didn’t you go to Mycroft?”

Sherlock feels himself scowling. “No.”

“You’ve had this feud with him for so long, Sherlock. You must know that he cares for you. You’re his brother.”

Sherlock offers nothing. He doesn’t want to bring up his childhood; the fiery tempers, the broken dolls and stolen books, a father who was never around and a mother who wanted them to be everything she couldn’t be.

He briefly hears Molly asking something, but just then John comes back into the room, looking cleaned up. Sherlock watches as John pauses by the mirror that’s placed against the wall.

The mirror, he knows, is from Irlan, where the seers living there produce magical mirrors that sorcerers use for scrying. Sherlock frowns. Although this design is meant to be decorative, not magical, he’s not keen on John standing too close to it.

Sherlock is still staring at John when Molly speaks up.

“You do that a lot,” Molly observes. Sherlock glances at her, curious.

She continues. “I never told you this, but... my dad... I saw him look like that once. After my mum’s funeral. He looked... sad -”

“Molly -” Sherlock interrupts, desperate for her to stop talking, unsure for once of where she’s headed with this conversation but not wanting to find out. He darts a furtive glance at John, who is leaning closer to peer at the mirror.

She continues talking, ignoring his warning tone. “You look sad. I mean, not all the time. ” Sherlock is staring at her now, but she’s turned her head away, and is looking at John, who is unaware that he’s the main topic. “When he’s not looking, when you think he can’t see you.”

Sherlock feels that he can’t breathe, he can’t think. He’s refused to see this, keeping it away, hidden beneath layers and layers of denial and now Molly, of all people, is reading him like an open book.

“When he talks, you always focus on him. L-Like you’re trying to record every word and gesture he makes. We’ve been friends for so long and I’ve never seen you do that to anyone. Not even... not even to me,” she’s now saying in her quiet voice. “But you should know this,” she pauses, “he won’t abandon you.”

Sherlock has always thought of her as weak, weaker than him, barely adequate enough to keep up with him. He had rejected her, mocked her, treated her poorly, but yet, even on his last day at the academy, she had looked at him with so much _hope_ , and told him that whenever he needed her help, all he had to do was ask.

He had scoffed at her then. Him, Sherlock Holmes, needing help when he could turn the world the other way with a spin of his fingers?

Sherlock sees her more clearly now. She was never weak. She is stronger, far stronger than Irene is, even in her own, quiet way.

He can see the moment that she sees it in his face, the realisation, and Molly nods, before leaning close to brush her lips once, lightly, against his cheek.

Sherlock watches her walk away to check on the mirror, as John straightens up from it. The two of them exchange a few words, and then John heads over to join Sherlock.

**\- + -**

John knows that they’re talking about him - the hushed voices, the glances being thrown his way. He tries to ignore it, and pretends to look at the mirror - a rather pretty one, although he’s not sure why it doesn’t show his reflection as clearly as he’d like.

He sees it happen.

Molly, kissing Sherlock on the cheek, and Sherlock not reacting like it was the end of the world.

Everything seems clearer somehow. Sherlock and Molly - well, he hadn’t thought that Sherlock was capable of having feelings sometimes, but they must have been together when they were younger. And now Sherlock’s back in Miyn, reconnecting with Molly, and that leaves John - where? He’s not sure how he fits into the picture, and even though it had been easy for him to dislike Irene, Molly has been nothing but kind to him, and he can’t hate her.

He sighs, and sees Molly step away from Sherlock, making her way towards John.

She’s smiling at him, and John finds that he can’t even be cold to her. He returns her smile.

“Lovely mirror,” he says to her conversationally.

“Irlani. It’s new - you know - a present. I thought it’d look nice here.”

“Oh, very nice,” John says.

“John,” she says, biting her lower lip in hesitation. John can see why she’s appealing to Sherlock. “He trusts you. Please take care of him.”

Ah. So now he’s being asked to safeguard Sherlock in order for him to return to Molly safely. Well done, John, you idiot, he thinks.

He assures Molly with a smile that he hopes is genuine enough, and she seems to accept it, looking relieved. John excuses himself, making his way back to Sherlock’s side.

“Good chat with Molly?” John asks casually. He receives an odd look, and a raised eyebrow.

John clears his throat. “Right, so what do we do now? We’ve seen Ambassador Yverek’s chambers, and quite frankly, after what’s happened, I’m not sure how we can prove our innocence at this point.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Sherlock argues back. “The evidence was all over the place, clear to anyone that not only did I _not_ commit the crime, but that Yverek had never been killed by any beetles.”

John stares at him. “But Lestrade said that he had the same symptoms as the other victims!”

“He ingested the virus through the tea. The tray that had been left there had two saucers, but only one cup, unfilled. There was a ring left behind by a pot on the tray, but the pot was missing. The evidence was removed before anyone else could find it. He died instantly, and then dragged to the bedroom that had been made to look like a struggle had occured. The killer then then left him there, covered in beetles.”

John frowns. “What about traces of your magic on his clothes? I don’t see how they could have gotten onto those.”

“Ah, you see, but you do not observe, John! My magical imprints were found all over the man’s clothes. Yet I’ve never met Yverek before, so how could my traces be on him? When could I have met him? I didn’t, not with him personally, but with his _clothes_.” Sherlock looks triumphant.

“When we ran into Moran in Vanath, I grabbed onto his clothes to stop him from escaping at first. It didn’t occur to me until we were in Yverek’s room that the clothes Moran had been wearing were from there. I confirmed it when I saw the scarf that was on the floor. The very same scarf had been on Moran, right there.”

“It was nearly impossible for us to even get in, how did he manage to slip past the guards?” John asks.

“Moran could easily pass off as a Rustari, he has the build for it - and went in disguised as a messenger. The parchments on the table - official documents written in Rustari - left untouched since that day, would be enough to get him past the guard. There’s the signet left in the wax which was supposed to have been used for stamping onto the documents. The engraving on the signet is a unique one, two markings across the desert eagle, meaning that this was meant to go to the Emperor. This could only mean that it was either the Emperor who sent the orders to kill Yverek or someone close to him.”

“But why would they kill their own ambassador?” Molly has joined them once more, and looks bewildered.

Sherlock looks grim. “To start a war between our nations. By blaming me, a sorcerer, they’re bringing back the old buried memories of the ancient dispute that sent us all to the first war.”

“But, Moran? He knew we were there. He was waiting for us.” John is skeptical.

“Whoever sent him must have known we would be back. The orders I found in Moran’s pouch indicated a time and place and nothing else,” Sherlock hands him the thin piece of parchment, and John reads it.

“Sherlock, that’s brilliant. We can prove that you’re innocent - this evens shows that Moran was hired to distract you in Vanath during the time Yverek was killed.”

“I’m afraid that will have to wait, John.” A new voice interrupts them. “There’s been a new development.”

John turns and sees a familiar man standing in the doorway leading to the room.

It’s the same tall sorcerer who had offered him money to spy on Sherlock.

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” John demands. He can see that Sherlock looks annoyed rather than angry at the man’s sudden appearance.

“Ah, John. Seems that your life has been rather interesting since I last saw you.”

John frowns. The voice sounds familiar, now that he thinks about it. “Can’t say I’m bored,” he answers cautiously.

“Being in the company of my brother will do that to you.”

“Wait. What? Brother?”

Mycroft looks on smugly, as Sherlock makes a face before turning to face John. “John, meet Mycroft Holmes.”

John gapes. “You were the giant eyeball!”

“In a manner of speaking,” Mycroft says sourly, as Sherlock beams at him. “Sherlock’s a little hard to reach and requires... supervision.”

A thought occurs to John. “So in Vanath, you knew about the murder. And you were warning Sherlock to escape before your Guild caught up with him.”

Mycroft stares at him, impassively - John is beginning to see that it’s a Holmes trademark - before Sherlock throws himself back down onto the couch.

“Send your warnings a little earlier next time, Mycroft,” Sherlock says. John can almost swear that Sherlock is sulking.

Mycroft throws him an annoyed look, before he turns and graciously bows to Molly. “Molly, it’s been a while. I hope you’ve been well. How are the new students in the academy?”

“She’s fine, very happy with life, students stress her out but she lets them anyway, can we get to the point of why you’re really here, Mycroft?” Sherlock snaps at him.

John edges closer and steps on his foot, willing him to behave. He receives a glare in return.

“Less than an hour ago, the Guild called for an emergency Council meeting. The Rustari are heading towards war.”

“What?” John is shocked. Molly turns pale.

Sherlock says nothing but watches his brother impassively.

“There isn’t an official declaration yet. This is something that the seers in Irlan have informed us about, and our patrols have reported back that the activity along the border has increased with a high number of Alliance-bound refugees.” Mycroft looks tired as he turns and addresses Sherlock, who’s still sitting on the couch, arms crossed. “Your actions today, for whatever reason you may have thought were justified, have made things worse. I received reports that you were spotted fighting the guards and killing someone in the chambers - the very same chambers where you were supposed to have killed their ambassador.”

John looks from one brother to the other in confusion. “But Sherlock is innocent, and you heard what he said earlier -”

“He will need to face the Emperor and convince him to call off the army.”

“Why can’t you just tell the Emperor what we’ve told you? You don’t need Sherlock risking his life in the middle of hostile territory like that.”

“He can’t.”

“And why the bloody hell not?” John demands.

“By this evening, all the Rustari delegates would been recalled to their capital. The border will be sealed to prevent anyone from the Alliance from entering their lands.” Mycroft looks grim. “In order to protect the people and convince the Emperor that the Alliance was in no way involved in the deaths of their countrymen, the Council has decided that they cannot be seen aiding a wanted criminal.”

John is furious. “So you’re just abandoning him then? Your -”

“John-” Sherlock tries to stop him.

“-own brother, was nearly killed twice -”

“ _John-_ ”

“-and you have the bloody gall to sit there, and tell us that you need his help anyway,” John finishes. “Shut up, Sherlock. I won’t have you go out there and getting killed.”

“John.” Sherlock’s voice sounds almost quieter, lower, and John realises that he’s gripping Sherlock’s arm tightly, knuckles white.

He glances up and sees Sherlock looking back at him in concern. Mycroft, he can tell, is looking between the both of them, at their joined arms.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, John. Convincing the Emperor would be child’s play - considering that he’s barely an adult himself - and I do have the orders that were sent to Moran.” His face is determined and _stubborn_.

 _Stubborn_ , beautiful - wait, where had that come from - _and ridiculous_ man, John thinks.

“You don’t need to follow me,” Sherlock adds.

John narrows his eyes, mentally adding _stupidly stubborn_ to the list.

“Rustari is nothing like Kotu, Sherlock,” Mycroft warns. “And you will need something better than the little talisman you have on John to hide you from prying eyes.”

“I might have something,” Molly says, moving over to a tiny box on top of the mantelpiece, and taking something from it. When she returns, she’s holding up two bracelets. “These metal bracelets will help you. As long as you’re wearing them, the enchantment will hide you from anyone looking for sorcerers.”

Sherlock takes one from her and slips it on. The metal clasp closes with a tiny clink. Next to him, John does the same.

“Oh, urm... yes. Please don’t take it off, not even for a second. The enchantment will break if you do that, and anyone scrying for you will detect you straight away.”

“Can Sherlock still use his sorcery? Or me, my healing?” John asks. When she nods enthusiastically, he relaxes visibly, looking relieved.

“Yes, yes! Of course, I only made it so that it would act as a shield. You can use your sorcery Sherlock, and it won’t burn the enchantment away,” she replies eagerly. Sherlock raises his eyebrow, looking surprised.

“You made these?” he asked, and he can see how happy and proud she looks as she nods again. He’s about to open up his mouth when he feels a sharp pain in his ribs, and John is speaking.

“That’s brilliant, Molly,” he is saying, “ and thank you, so, so much for helping us.”

Molly is looking at Sherlock, as if waiting for him to speak. He clears his throat, as John shoots him another look.

“Yes, thank you, Molly. It’s... it’s very good.” He sees the look of surprise from Mycroft, who looks at Sherlock and then at John, narrowing his eyes. His face looks thoughtful.

“We should go now,” Sherlock declares, and opens up the portal. Mycroft has already pointed out the location on the map earlier to him.

Molly’s cheeks are flushed, probably from the sudden praise. “Please be careful,” she tells them.

Mycroft is silent, but his eyes - the slight tensing of skin around them and the look inside them that speaks volumes of his worry - tell Sherlock everything he needs to know.

He nods briefly and turns to enter the portal with John.

**\- + -**

The portal closes a few seconds after the duo have stepped through, and the room is filled with a heavy silence.

“Thank you for your help, Molly,” Mycroft finally speaks, flicking an imaginary dustball off his robes. “Rest assured, your role in this won’t be on the record, and we never saw Sherlock or John at all.” He turns, about to leave, when Molly speaks up suddenly.

“Will he … will they be alright, do you think?” he hears her ask hesitantly. “Him and John?”

He doesn’t lie. He can’t, not to Molly, who’s been there for their family through everything, half in love with Sherlock her whole life and still holding on to that faint glimmer of hope. “Sherlock will do everything he can to make sure they return safely, Molly.”

The truth is, he doesn’t know either.


	5. The Fall of Legends

> _We were not always sworn enemies. There was a time when Miyn was like a sister to us. Unfortunately, at one of the Miyn training camps in Rustari, a first level Adept devastated the area. In retaliation, the Rustari imprisoned the remaining Miyns left within their borders, declaring war on the nation. Even though we were finally driven back, defeated, and forced into a neutral stance years later, the scars can never be healed._
> 
> _- **“The Tiger of the Sands”** , Doylian Arthur (Published 1859)_

Just before John turns around to step into the portal after Sherlock, he sees a worried look on Mycroft’s face which stirs his curiosity.

He barely has a chance to wonder about it when he hears a shout. Turning around, John realises that he and Sherlock are in what looks like a large tent, with oil lamps burning low, casting a glow on a naked man - _naked?_ \- standing on top of a bed, holding a long dagger in his hands while shouting obscenities at their intrusion. John can see another person trying to cover up their nudity with a blanket.

Behind them, the portal disappears.

John groans. “Sherlock, don’t tell me your spell fail- ” he begins, but just then the naked man leaps off the bed and is swinging the dagger at him.

“Oi, bloody hell!” John swears, stepping back, dodging. The man is about to swing again when he’s suddenly frozen in place, the pointed edge of his dagger within a hair's breadth of John’s chest.

His eyes are locked on John’s, unmoving.

“John, you can step away now.” Sherlock’s voice cuts in. John takes a step back, and breathes in relief as Sherlock uses his magic to bind the man.

John tries not to look down as he edges away from both pointed objects.

“You couldn’t have waited another twenty minutes, Sherlock?” an annoyed voice pipes up suddenly. John notices that the other person on the bed has managed to pull on a robe, wrapping it around himself and tying it together at the waist.

“Only twenty minutes, Saren?” Sherlock asks, sounding amused. Saren glares at him.

“Not like _you_ would know,” he snaps, but pauses when he catches sight of John. A coy look replaces the earlier annoyed one. “Why, Sherlock, I didn’t know you brought me presents.” He slides off the bed, and stalks over towards John. “Not my usual type, but I suppose you would do,” he says, letting his fingers linger on John’s chest.

Barely a touch, and Sherlock is there, holding Saren’s wrist in a death-grip.

“He’s not yours,” he growls, voice low and threatening. Saren’s eyes flicker in surprise towards John for a moment and then to Sherlock. A knowing smile appears slowly on Saren’s face.

“Interesting,” he murmurs. John sees Sherlock tighten his grip, and Saren winces in pain. “Alright, you’ve made your point. I’ll leave your... _pet_ alone.”

John is offended. “I’m not his _pet_.”

Sherlock releases Saren, who glances at his bed partner with a raised eyebrow, and looks back at Sherlock, who flicks his wrist, removing the spell.

Released from the spell, the momentum of his earlier movement sends Saren’s bedmate stumbling forward into a space that no longer contained his original target. He manages to regain his balance and whirls around to face John and Sherlock, ready to attack again, but he hesitates upon seeing Saren unharmed and looking bored instead of hurt.

John notices Saren giving the man a sharp look. “They are our guests tonight, William,” Saren declares and William relaxes his aggressive stance.

He still shoots Sherlock a brief glare as he takes his place next to Saren.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. John tries to look everywhere but at the naked duo.

“Well,” Saren sounds amused, “Now that the everyone’s less inclined to kill each other, how about some tea?”

**\- + -**

The night is cold, biting mercilessly through the thick Miyn cloak, seeping into John’s skin.

He’s back in Rustari, where everything reminds him of his days in the military. Reminding him of wide-eyed young recruits are sent to fight in the endless desert heat and freezing night temperatures. Of acrid burning flesh and torn limbs, gaping holes where a chest and a beating heart should have been. Of lives that he couldn’t save, he could stop from dying, he could bring back to life.

The attack came before dawn, when they had been at their weakest. The rebels had ambushed the camp, sending a hail of flaming arrows into their midsts, the steel tips piercing through the shields and striking soldiers where they stood.

They had managed to fend them off, with the help of their Rustari allies. But the news was dire, the injured were too many. Their original healer had been struck dead where he stood, chunks of his flesh burning where pieces of him had landed. John had been the only other person capable of healing the injured, and he had tried to save them all even though he had been struck by an arrow in the shoulder himself. But there were too many, and then the mysterious sandstorm had come out of nowhere, burying them alive -

He lets out a quiet sigh, hating his memories for returning. He’s had the same memories appearing in his nightmares for months, starting just days after he had been discharged and sent back to Lonin. Lately, the nightmares have stopped, the memories suppressed and he no longer dreams of death.

He knows that it’s due to Sherlock.

Sherlock is back at the tent, still talking to Saren, who was an old friend of Sherlock’s from his academy. Rustari-born, Saren had been raised in Miyn and might have even had a chance at a spot on the Council had it not been revealed that he had been sleeping with not just one, but two of its members.

He had left Lonin rather hurriedly after the incident, with Sherlock’s help, and ended up back here with William. Who is apparently Saren’s Companion, who now sit beside him quietly serving them cups of _cha_ \- a rare and illegal Rustari drink which John is sure that Sherlock has a few bottles of hidden in his tower.

Saren is teasing, playful - reminding John too much of Irene Adler somehow, which stirs up the old feelings of jealousy. After the sixth or seventh time of being called Sherlock’s pet, John excuses himself to walk off his irritation. It was either that or punch Saren, which would have probably led to his Companion breaking John’s nose. Probably not wise.

John knows that Sherlock can’t enter the palace on his own, not by strolling up to the front door and announcing himself. He needs to find a way to meet the Emperor, to prove his innocence and clear his name, without any interruptions. Saren, apparently, has enough contacts within the palace to help sneak Sherlock in.

Somewhere in the darkness, a cricket chirps, followed by another. John realises that he’s walked beyond the overhanging rock formation, leaving behind the nomadic tent in the enclave. The tinge of cold he had felt earlier must have been the shield that Saren had placed around the area to mask their presence.

As he turns to find his way back towards the tents, the wind surrounding him increases from its quiet murmur to a low-pitched whistle.

John takes a deep breath of the cold night air, letting the scent of the desert _kikara_ fill his nose, teasing at his senses. The tiny pale flowers are hardy things, sprouting whenever there is a little water to be found no matter how deep. Beneath the rock and sand, its long thin roots would be searching, poking through crevices and weaving its way towards the source of life.

In many ways, Sherlock being in his life is like the _kikara_ , weaving beneath John’s skin and bones and sinking his roots into John’s heart, refusing to let go.

John’s not sure he would let him either.

He sighs. He’s not sure where he stands with Sherlock with this... this _thing_ they have between them _kiss_ \- gods, he’s turning into an adolescent girl with all these feelings, isn’t he - and yet he can’t help but feel a stirring of hope when Sherlock had reacted to Saren flirting with John.

John is suddenly aware that everything has gone silent. Too silent, in fact. The crickets have gone mute; there’s barely a whisper of wind. The sweet scent of the kikara is now replaced by a heavy stench of rotting flesh.

The fog that appears over the horizon, moving slowly and sluggishly towards him is not natural. He takes a step back, instinctively pulling out his dagger even though he knows how pointless and ineffective this is.

John is so engrossed in trying to put as much distance between him and the fog that he doesn’t see where he’s stepping and trips. He falls back, onto the sand, landing on his arse.

The fog is closer now, and he can smell it. It makes him want to vomit, to get up and run away from those pale, finger-like tendrils, reaching out, almost about to touch him, but he can’t, he -

A flash of white almost blinds him, followed by a screeching that pierces the air, snapping him out of his trance. When his vision clears, he sees Sherlock next to him, his face filled with fury. His hands are stretched out towards the fog, most of which has dispersed but is beginning to piece itself together again. Another ball of white light forms in Sherlock’s hand, this time tinged with blue hues, and Sherlock sends it towards the fog once more.

This time, there’s nothing left of the fog, and the heavy stench of death is gone, now replaced by the faint scent of _kikara_.

Someone shouts, and John turns to see Saren running towards them, with William several feet ahead of him.

“Are you all alright?” Saren asks breathlessly when he reaches them. “You should not have stepped beyond the shields!” he tells John sternly.

“What the hell was that?” John’s voice comes out shaking, and he swallows, trying to keep himself calm - he’s a soldier, damn it, he’s not supposed to be afraid - and looks up at Saren, ignoring Sherlock’s concerned look.

Saren exchanges glances with William. “There have been... rumours. Of a darkness that stalks the night. It has been kept hushed, but some suspect that it is a plague.”

John blinks. “You make it sound like it’s a living creature, but yet it’s a plague?”

“You must understand. It is hard to decipher the ramblings of a few poor villagers who are too frightened to stay in their own homes - but they say that the black cloud taunts them from the edge of their homes, calling them, and those who venture out come back sickly - or do not return at all.” Saren shakes his head, looking troubled. “The ones who are sick spread it to their families. There is no cure.”

Sherlock is quiet, seemingly deep in thought. John nudges him. “What are you thinking, Sherlock?”

“What? Oh, nothing. Just... something odd.” Sherlock kneels down, near the blackened soot that remained of the... whatever that had been, John couldn’t help but think of it as a living fog.

“We should stay inside the shield,” William rumbles out disapprovingly.

Sherlock ignores him. “Saren, do you have a jar, or a bottle for me to store some samples of this?” Sherlock asks. Saren nods, catching William’s eye. They stare at each other for several long moments before William’s shoulders sag in defeat and he disappears back to the tent.

Sherlock raises an eyebrow once William is out of earshot. “I didn’t expect you to fall into domesticity,” he says to Saren. John notices that Saren looks uncomfortable at this remark.

“I still wake up everyday feeling surprised. But you, my old friend, are the last person I would have expected to have found a Companion,” Saren slaps his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder as he says this. Before John can protest this statement, William appears and wordlessly tosses a small clay jar towards Sherlock, who catches it deftly.

Once the sample has been collected, they head back to the tent, stopping briefly for Sherlock and Saren to reinforce the shield surrounding the area. William sets up an additional tent for John and Sherlock. The tent is smaller than the one which Saren shares with William, but it’s large enough for John to move around comfortably without having to bend over (although the top of Sherlock’s head still brushes against the ceiling).

Sherlock leaves John in the tent for a good hour as he bullies Saren into letting Sherlock use his worktable to run some tests on the blackened remnants of the fog. William comes by to apologise to John for attacking him earlier. He sticks around, telling stories of his training as a Companion.

Later, Saren pops his head through the tent flaps and hands John a small pot, containing a healing balm for the bruises he sustained earlier.

Right after this, Sherlock appears, and Saren takes his leave, rattling off an excuse about being exhausted and dragging William out after him.

John suspects that none of them are willing to let him out of their sight, and feels a bit annoyed - but then Sherlock removes his cloak and his shirt to change into the clothes that Saren has provided.

His words get stuck in his throat as this display of skin right in front of him. John hurriedly snatches up the balm that Saren left behind, glad for the excuse to not tackle Sherlock to the ground and kiss him senseless.

**\- + -**

Sherlock studies John, noticing the bruise on his elbow as he changes out of his Miyn cloak and into the clothes that Saren has provided them.

He finds it easy to read people, to know who they are and where they’ve come from and what they’re capable of doing. But sometimes, John throws him off because he doesn’t fit into that category. John’s loyalty and unbreakable faith in Sherlock baffles him, makes him want to grab John by the arms and ask him why. Why does he trust Sherlock?

John inspects his elbow, wincing as he presses against the raw bruise. Not for the first time, Sherlock wishes that he could heal John, but their magic works so differently. Healing magic is confined to another level of physics entirely, separate from common sorcery, and Sherlock doesn’t have the ability to heal.

Healers can’t cast their own magic on themselves either - another failing point - so John has no choice but to accept the healing balm that Saren has left for him. Sherlock watches as John dips his finger into the tiny pot, before he rolls up his sleeve, trying to reach around his arm to rub the balm into his elbow.

After watching John struggle for a few more seconds, Sherlock lets out an annoyed noise and stalks over. “Here, let me do it,” he informs John, snatching up the pot from the table. He pushes John down onto the bedroll and sits next to him, gripping his arm firmly to stop him from pulling away.

As John stares, looking a little wide-eyed, Sherlock scoops out a generous amount of the balm, warming it between his fingers before applying it to the bruise. The oily mixture spreads easily on the skin as Sherlock works gently, pressing but not hurting John.

“You should not have followed me here,” Sherlock says. John narrows his eyes and his mouth opens as if he’s ready to start another argument again. “It would have been safer for you back in Miyn.”

_If_ he hadn’t felt the emptiness next to him where John was sitting earlier. _If_ he hadn’t gone out after him and seen the strange fog hovering over John. _If_ he hadn’t cast his spell in time. All the _ifs_ in the world, and none of them matters compared to Sherlock losing John.

John scoffs. “How much safer would I have been? Not when they were looking for me too.”

“Mycroft could have helped clear your name.”

John keeps silent, as Sherlock continues working the ointment in. He has his head turned away, not looking at Sherlock.

“I can open a portal for you, and send you back. You’ll be safe with Mycroft, or even Molly. There’s no point being here with me,” Sherlock hears the words that are coming out of his mouth: practical, logical, even though his stomach twists and turns as his heart selfishly denies it, denies wanting to send John away to safety.

He waits for John to answer and holds his breath as John turns his head to look up at Sherlock.

“Are you daft?” John asks, sounding annoyed.

Sherlock blinks. Not the response he was expecting. “John -” he begins, but John yanks his arm away, shoving roughly at Sherlock’s chest.

“Listen to me, Sherlock. I’m not going back to Miyn or Lonin or Kotu or anywhere else you think you can send me to keep me out of the way. I am _not_ some bloody princess that you get to lock in a tower, so stop treating me like I’m capable of breaking,” John is practically shouting in his face.

“You’ll be killed,” Sherlock tells him flatly. “I can do this alone. The Emperor wants me, after all. Not you.”

John sucks in his breath sharply. “So that’s it, then. You were planning to turn yourself in to save the Alliance, weren’t you?” he accuses. “You never had a plan. You think this is some heroic -”

Sherlock snorts. “This isn’t about being a hero, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.” He doesn’t have a choice. “I’ve always done everything on my own before, and I’ve told you that having Companions are a hindrance. You’ll only get in my way.” Sherlock swallows the bitter taste rising in his throat at this lie. “I don’t need you.” Another lie.

John stares at him, hurt and Sherlock meets his gaze steadily, not wanting to give anything away.

When John speaks, again he shatters Sherlock’s expectations. “No, that’s where you’re wrong,” he says fiercely. “You go around acting like you’re capable of doing things on your own, that you don’t need anyone - but all this time, you’ve always depended on everyone for help. Lestrade, Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, Molly, Irene - you’ve needed their help, even as they needed yours - and you won’t ever admit it because you’re too bloody proud.” He stops to breathe, before adding, “And you need me. Just as much as I’ve needed you.”

Sherlock almost reels back in shock at this declaration. He sees the way John breaks him apart, breaks him down. The way John looks right into his character and lays it out for Sherlock to see his own imperfections.

He’s not wrong.

Sherlock does need John, more than just to help him, but as his friend, as his Companion and so much more.

John is still speaking. “So I’m not letting you do this alone, no matter what, and if you think that you can get rid of me, let me tell y- _mpphhh_!”

John’s lips are surprisingly soft, even though they’ve been in the desert, suffering from slight dehydration. Sherlock sucks at the bottom lip, nipping at it, hard. John lets out a gasp, his mouth parting open slightly and Sherlock takes the opportunity to slip his tongue in, tangling with John’s.

John is clutching at his shoulders, trying to hang on, whimpering a little. Encouraged, Sherlock slides his hand down between them, reaching for John’s breeches -

\- and then John is pulling away, breaking the kiss, shoving Sherlock away from him. Surprised, Sherlock accidentally knocks the pot over. It goes rolling off the bedroll and across the room.

“No, wait... Sherlock. I can’t - oh gods - I can’t do this. Not to Molly.”

Molly?

“What?”

John is breathing hard, his hand placed against Sherlock’s chest as if trying to keep him from leaning closer. “You and Molly? In her house? I saw her kiss you, Sherlock. And you both... you both have been together for so long - and she’s in love with you - and I can’t be involved in this. Not when you’re both together.”

And then Sherlock begins to chuckle.

John glares at him.

“For gods’ sakes, John.” He’s trying to pull John closer and failing. Sherlock sighs. “Don’t be ridiculous. Molly is a friend, no, I’m not interested in her, and no, I don’t have a habit of sleeping around if I’m already with someone.”

“But... she kissed you-”

Sherlock made a face. “Well, yes. Look, Molly has been, most uncomfortably, in love with me for a long time. I rejected her many times and she still had hope - but she knows about you. Me. Us. And oddly enough, she’s a... she’s a friend.” Sherlock notices that John’s hands have gone slack, and he gently tugs at them to pull John closer, wrapping them around Sherlock’s neck. “I don’t have many friends, and my affections are solely for one person.”

As Sherlock leans down to kiss John, he can’t help but observe how John’s eyes are still wide in astonishment at Sherlock’s honest declaration. Tongue sliding out, licking across the lips, body pressed together, slotting in perfectly, and finally John closes his eyes, relaxing into Sherlock’s embrace. He returns Sherlock’s kisses hungrily.

Sherlock slides his hand over John’s neck, gripping the back of it briefly before tracing along his shoulder and down the the curve of it that’s covered in thick cotton. He wants nothing more than to dissolve the cloth, have it disappear so he can touch the sweat-slicked skin beneath, to press his tongue against it and break through the skin with his teeth and leave his mark.

John bites none too gently at his bottom lip, as if to remind him to continue and stop getting distracted. Chuckling quietly in his throat, Sherlock starts kissing his way along John’s jawline, sliding his mouth over John’s throat as he presses John back onto the bedroll, moaning quietly. When Sherlock licks into his ear, the tongue slipping in to trace the inner rim, John lets out a loud gasp and his hips buck in response. The movement causes him to press up against Sherlock - who is so incredibly hard by now that the brush of hip against his cock makes him lose control, letting out a telltale moan into John’s ear.

“Clothes,” John manages out between gasps and Sherlock lifts one hand, about to cast a spell to divulge them of their clothes completely when he feels John catching it by the wrist. He pulls back in surprise, raising his eyebrows questioningly.

“Let me, just - please, Sherlock,” John says quietly. Sherlock searches his face, and realises that John needs this.

He nods in agreement and lets John manhandle him into a sitting position, noting with amusement as John proceeds to pull off Sherlock’s shift. Sherlock finds himself shivering slightly as the cold desert temperature hits him, even though the heating stones placed around the tent should have reduced the cold.

“Cold?” John asks. He slides his hands around Sherlock’s neck. An impish look appears on John’s face. “I have a spell that might help warm you up... and enhance things a little,” he says. just as a warm sensation began to flow from those hands into Sherlock’s body.

“John -” Sherlock starts, but John leans up and kisses him.

The feeling is nothing like what Sherlock has experienced with his previous lovers. He’s only felt this once before, after the first time John had healed him. The first time Sherlock had kissed him.

The warm sensations travel throughout his body, making him more aware of _everything_ around them. Caught up in this strange spell that John has cast, Sherlock lets John take over the kiss completely. He can feel John’s fingers brush against his stomach briefly before they slip away to work on removing the rest of Sherlock’s clothes.

The minute they’re both naked, John makes Sherlock lie down on his back and straddles both sides of his hips. He watches as John leans over him and runs his fingers curiously over Sherlock’s bare chest, pressing soft kisses against it. He curses aloud when John licks at his nipple just as their cocks brush against each other and the sensation travels down his spine in a shiver.

John spends some time sucking, licking and even biting at his chest and nipples, rutting against him. But when he reaches the scar that’s been left behind by the arrow, licking around the ugly bit of skin, Sherlock flinches, trying to move away.

Sherlock may have been healed, but the scar will always remain there, a constant reminder of his weakness.

He says as much to John, who shakes his head, disagreeing. “Not a weakness, Sherlock. Magic doesn’t make us - don’t roll your eyes, I know it sounds terribly cliche - but it doesn’t form our personalities. Without my magic, I’m still a soldier who loves his country. Without your magic, you’re still be this gorgeous, brilliant and amazing man.” John ducks his head, as if he’s embarrassed. “Probably even the best detective instead of just a sorcerer.”

Sherlock sits up a little, resting back on his elbows. From this angle, with John still astride him, his fingers making their way back down Sherlock’s chest, tracing circles around his nipples, he can see that John’s cheeks are red from blushing. He can’t help letting his mouth curl up into a small smile. “You think I’m gorgeous, then?” he teases, and yelps as John tweaks his nipple hard.

“Arrogant. Did I mention that - ahh -” John breaks off mid-sentence just as Sherlock slips his hand behind him and presses a finger against the rough pucker of skin, slipping into his hole slightly, dry and needy.

“Less words, more action,” Sherlock tells him, and he feels pleased when John rocks back and his finger slips in a little more.

Sherlock slips his finger out of John - who actually looks displeased at the loss - and sits up further, one hand reaching out towards the pot that had rolled a distance away. A sharp flick of his wrist and the tiny pot lifts, floating closer for him to snatch at before it drops. He dips two fingers inside, then reaches behind John to press back into him again.

This time the oiliness of the balm makes it easier for him to push his finger deeper. Still positioned on top of Sherlock, John leans forward, gasping against Sherlock’s chest and clenching back against the intrusion. Sherlock slows his hand, slowly pumping his finger in and out. When he feels John relaxing again, he slips in a second finger, this time spreading them apart in order to ease his way in later.

John’s hands are flat on Sherlock’s chest as he pushes back, greedily taking both fingers. Sherlock decides that he loves seeing John like this. He looks flushed, face and ears red from embarrassment each time he lets out a whimper. With his eyes closed and mouth gasping out a litany of words that sound like “so good” and “Sherlock, yes, more”, Sherlock has to hold himself back from forcing John onto his cock right away.

When he’s about to push in a third finger, John shakes his head. “Now, Sherlock. I need -” he moans when the finger enters him, filling him, “- now. _Sherlock_ ,” he chokes out, desperation in his voice.

Sherlock kisses him briefly before pulling his fingers out, and John lifts himself up. Sherlock has barely managed to slick up his own cock with more of the balm when John impatiently bats his hands away and reaches between them, holding Sherlock’s cock, ready to sink down onto it.

“Ah -” Sherlock starts to tell him to go slow, but the words are stuck in his throat as John shoves himself down, hard, his heat enveloping Sherlock completely to the hilt. It’s too much, too soon, and Sherlock finds himself crying out at how incredibly tight it feels.

John himself is wincing in pain and breathing hard as well from the sudden intrusion. It takes him a while to compose himself once more, and it’s only when Sherlock shifts his hips, reminding him to get on with the show, that he begins to lift himself up and thrust downwards again.

They find the right rhythm after a few awkward tries, and soon Sherlock is pushing up into John as he pushes back down to meet him.

Sherlock adjusts his hips, and then it’s like he’s struck gold when he’s rewarded by John’s sudden shout of “Gods, _yes_ ”. John’s continued whimpers and moans fill his ears and mind, driving him to thrust harder, deeper. He feels John’s hands moving, and Sherlock tangles their fingers together, holding on tightly.

When John sends another burst of his magic into Sherlock once more, the sensation doubles and Sherlock comes, crying out John’s name hoarsely.

When his vision clears, he sees John’s eyes are closed, and he has his hands wrapped around his own cock, pulling at it, little moans escaping from him. Sherlock pushes at John’s hips, shifting him in order to pull out, which causes John to wince visibly at the loss.

Sherlock pushes John’s hands away, ignoring his protests and wraps one hand around his cock just as two of his fingers find their way into John again, pushing Sherlock’s seed back inside.

John pushes up into Sherlock’s grip and back down onto his fingers, hard, rough, as Sherlock watches in fascination. Faster and faster he moves, his fingers gripping onto Sherlock’s wrist now as if he’s in need of something to hold onto.

Sherlock crooks his fingers, and John comes with a shout, spilling onto Sherlock’s hands, belly and some of it landing on his chest.

Later, much later when they’ve cleaned themselves up and John is tucked against his chest, snoring lightly, Sherlock finds that a sleepy, pliant John is a rather cuddly person. Sherlock stays awake, putting the details of his plans into place.

If all else fails, he’ll at least be able to make sure that John will return home safely, even if Sherlock doesn’t make it.

**\- + -**

“I have some bad news,” Saren tells them over breakfast the next morning. “Getting a private audience with Emperor Athit may prove to be difficult now. His advisor has returned from Miyn with the other delegates.”

“His advisor?” John frowns, trying to remember the name. “He was in Miyn?”

“He was in the same entourage as the late Yverek. A strange fellow, I find; nothing like the previous advisor to the old Emperor.”

Sherlock goes very, very still. “What’s his name?” he demands. “Have you seen him before?”

“Little fellow, beady eyes. I’m not very impressed - what was his name... oh yes. Moriarty, that was his name.” Saren shrugs. “James Moriarty. No one knows which clan he’s from, but there are rumours that he’s from up north.”

“Will he recognize Sherlock?” John asks.

“Perhaps. I am concerned that he may try to influence Emperor Athit in his decision concerning Sherlock.” Saren hesitates. “Athit is still a young man, and young men are prone to making rash decisions. ”

“In that case,” Sherlock says calmly, “let us make sure that the Advisor does not influence the Emperor.” And he begins to lay out the plan that is forming in his mind.

**\- + -**

Apparently, getting into the palace is easy.

“Sherlock Holmes, here to see Emperor Athit the Second,” Sherlock declares to the surprised guards guarding the front gates leading into the palace.

The guards stare at him, their mouths wide open like fish out of water.

“Well, hurry up,” Sherlock snaps his fingers at them impatiently, making one of them jump. “I haven’t got all day.”

They still stare at him, stupefied. He sighs, and sets one of their hats on fire.

The response is instantaneous.

The guards, still trying to decide whether to stab him with the spear or to throw him into the dungeons, hauls him into the palace, barking commands at him in Rustari. Soon, he finds himself being shoved through the open doorway that leads to a large hall, heavily decorated with murals along the walls and ceilings, depicting ancient battles and legends. At the end of the room is a golden throne, the back of it tall and the armrests covered with delicate carvings of griffins.

Suddenly, someone speaks, and Sherlock notices that there’s a figure hiding in the shadows behind the throne.

“Leave us,” the voice - a man - orders, smooth and silky from the shadows. “Make sure we are not to be disturbed.”

Once the doors are closed, Sherlock speaks up. “I gather you’re not the Emperor.”

The voice chuckles, sounding amused. “No.” The figure steps out from behind the throne.

“You seem to have misplaced your uniform, Constable Jameson. Or would you prefer _Moriarty_?,” Sherlock comments dryly. The man, whom Sherlock remembers from the first time he had met John, laughs in delight.

“Didn’t quite need it here, as you can see,” he answers, holding his arms out wide. Sherlock notices that he’s dressed in typical Rustari fashion, his silk mantle heavily embroidered.

“No, you don’t. Advisor to the Emperor, quite a big promotion there,” Sherlock raises an eyebrow, studying the man in front of him. “You’ve been behind it all - using the beetles to spreading the plague, controlling the Koturi boar and sending it after us, Yverek’s assassination - you even went all out to make sure I was implicated in that and then set Moran on us.”

“Very clever! I’m still rather put out by what you did to Moran, though. He was one of my favourites.” Moriarty is now sprawled across the throne, one leg hanging off the armrest.

“Sorry about that, he got in the way,” Sherlock tells him unkindly.

“I’ve been watching you very closely, you know - don’t look so surprised, your little tricks are useless against my magic. Most convenient of you to visit Molly in Miyn, of course.”

Sherlock remembers the small ornate Rustari gifts on the mantelpiece, Molly mentioning that she was seeing someone who was hardly around, and the mirror -

The mirror. Moriarty had given it as a gift to Molly, and it had acted as a way for Moriarty to listen in to the entire conversation that day with Mycroft and Sherlock and John in the room.

Moriarty is grinning. “I must give you some credit, Sherlock, to have come so far,” he declares. “Not that you’ll get out of this alive, though.”

Sherlock can sense the amount of power behind Moriarty’s shield and knows that he’s facing someone who’s his equal in sorcery.

“Why all the elaborate planning? And trying to recreate a plague that no longer exists?” Sherlock wants to know.

“Do you remember that old story, about a boy, who was a sorcerer in some obscure village? The one who was beaten nearly half to death out of jealousy, for having powers they couldn’t have, until he cast one last spell, making everyone think that he died?”

Sherlock frowns. “The Diranian Plague,” he says slowly.

Moriarty leans forward, looking pleased. “Guess who’s back?” he sings out.

“You’re Diran.” Sherlock shouldn’t feel so surprised. It’s all beginning to add up.

Moriarty grins. “In the flesh. Although, I prefer going by my new name now.”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him, taking in Moriarty’s youthful face. “You’re looking rather well for someone who’s meant to have been dead for over a century.”

Moriarty preens a little. “I get by. Trying to recreate the spell was so annoying - you’d think after a hundred years I’d still remember the damn thing. Shame about Yverek, though, I quite liked him. Although he smelled like fish.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Moriarty twirls his finger in a circular motion, shaping into existence a tiny flame that grows larger into a fiery blade. Sherlock feels the hairs on the back of his neck rising as Moriarty glances over, winking.

“Because I’m _bored_.”

The blade flies straight and true, heading towards Sherlock, who flings up a shield just in time. The spell bounces off his shield harmlessly, but then Sherlock has another problem. The room begins to darken, a sense of dread filling it, and Sherlock watches as a fog begins to rise up slowly, surrounding Moriarty. It swirls in tiny tendrils around his feet before spreading outwards.

A ring of blue fire surrounds it as Sherlock casts his spell, but then Moriarty raises his hand, dousing it just as easily.

**\- + -**

Emperor Athit the Second, Ruler of all of Rustari, was a young man barely past the age of sixteen. Who had nearly called for the guards when John had suddenly appeared in his room through a portal. It had taken some quick persuading, with John shoving the orders from Moran into his face to convince him to calm down and listen to John’s side of the story.

The emperor had been outraged to discover that his own Advisor had been the one who was plotting against his throne and stalked out of the room to confront Moriarty, with John hurrying after him.

Just as they approach the throne room, John hears an explosion from inside. He trades worried looks with the emperor and they hurry closer.

The two palace guards standing in front of the closed doors are trembling at the sight of their emperor heading towards them with a determined look on his face. He barks an order to them, but they look at him in fear and babbles in Rustari about the doors being sealed how they’ve been unable to break it down.

John slams his hand against the doors. “Damn it, Sherlock!” he yells through the door. “Let me in!”

Another explosion - closer, it seems - shaking the doors and jarring them loose enough to reveal a bit of space between them. John snatches the spear from one of the guards and jams it into the hole, using the leverage to pry open the door -

\- to reveal utter chaos.

Sherlock is pinned against one of the large pillars that line the path leading towards the throne, high up near the ceiling. One hand is stretched out, throwing streaks of blue and white fireballs towards a dark fog that’s rising from another sorcerer, trying to reach for Sherlock. Nearby, part of the wall is missing, revealing the open desert that surrounds the capital city and the palace that’s built next to the ravine. Above it all, the sky has begun to darken.

“Sherlock!” John shouts out. He’s going to kill Sherlock for putting himself in danger again.

“Glad you could make it, John,” Moriarty drawls. “You’re just in time for the closing finale.”

“Advisor Moriarty! What is the meaning of this?” Emperor Athit demands, but then John catches sight of the fog spread towards them.

“Your Majesty, lookout!” John throws himself against the emperor, shoving him out of the way as a tendril lashes out at him. John doesn’t move fast enough, however, and the emperor screams in pain, holding his bleeding arm. The skin surrounding the wound where the fog had slashed him begins to blacken, the veins beneath turning dark as _something_ flows through his body.

Outraged, one of the palace guards tries to stab at the flailing tendril. The spear goes through the fog harmlessly as the guard stares in horror. The fog slides up his legs and arms, covering his entire body and slipping into his mouth and nose. The guard begins to scream, the sound painful and horrifying and unlike anything John’s heard before, and then the fog sucks him into the darkness, swallowing him.

The other guard looks terrified and is gibbering in fear. He turns to run, but the fog overwhelms him before he can make it out of the door.

Emperor Athit is turning pale, and he’s trembling and sweating as the infection spreads across his body. John tries to pull him away from the advancing fog, but they’re backed up against a wall now, and there’s no way to escape -

“No!” he hears Sherlock shout, and John watches as Sherlock sends a blaze of blue fire towards Moriarty. Already overtaxed with controlling the dark fog, Moriarty throws up a weak shield which fails to stop the flames from engulfing him. He spins around, shrieking in agony.

Sherlock lands heavily on the floor, released from the spell. He raises his hand, sending the rest of the flames across the room, burning away every inch of the fog. The last shrills of the dying fog fades away as the flames die down, and John slumps back against the wall, relieved.

Lying in a small, whimpering heap of burnt flesh in front of the throne, is Moriarty, and John feels a sense of fierce satisfaction that the man who’s been trying to kill Sherlock has been brought down.

It’s all over.

Sherlock is there, suddenly, shaking John out of his confused state. “John, you need to help the emperor. He’s been infected with the Diranian plague.”

John glances at Emperor Athit, who looks so young and pale and lifeless, curled up in a fetal position on the floor. John feels his stomach drop when he realises that he’s stopped trembling, no longer moving.

John crawls over to the Emperor and places his hands on his head, concentrating. Seconds later, his face falls, and he lets out a frustrated noise. “We’re too late.”

He looks up at Sherlock. “The Emperor is dead.”

**\- + -**

_The Emperor is dead_.

Without him, Rustari is bound for war with the other nations.

“You can revive him,” Sherlock declares, and John stares at him.

“No one can bring back the dead, Sherlock. You said it yourself, the first time we met.”

“Not someone who has been killed by mortal means. But magical means? That is different. I know you think that you’re a failure. _But you are not_.”

John looks trapped, torn between wanting to run and wanting to stay. “Even then, I’m just a healer -”

“The first time we met, I told you that you were at the shop to buy some potions for yourself. But you weren’t there for that, were you? You were planning to get more information about restoration spells, so that you could find out why you had failed to save your men. You wanted to find the forbidden scrolls, the same one that the shopkeeper had hidden between all his books -”

“I’ve read the forbidden scrolls, long before that! I went there because I wanted to know _why_ the spell hadn’t work at all.” John looks anguished. “I thought I could do it, that I could use the knowledge to save lives. But the truth is, I failed because I didn't have enough magic to bring them back.” He lowers his voice, looking sadly at the dead emperor. “This is why I can’t bring him back.”

Sherlock kneels down on the other side of the body, facing John. He places his hands on John’s shoulders. “Listen to me.” John’s eyes meet his gaze. “Did you think I wouldn’t have already read about the restoration spell? The one key element that’s missing from all the scrolls is that it _cannot be done alone_. It requires _two_ people: a high level sorcerer, sharing his magic with a healer in order to make it work.” He breaths. “ Take my magic.”

“What-” John looks startled, and almost pulls away, but Sherlock grips his shoulders tighter, holding him in place.

“No, listen. I can feed you my power, give you what you need. Just take it and bring the emperor back.”

“What if I fail again?” John sounds so small and uncertain.

Sherlock offers him what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You won’t fail, John. You’ve never failed me, despite the fact that you hardly knew me. You’ve always been there, by my side.” His heart clenches up at his own words - _sentiment_ , he can hear himself mocking - but the determined look on John’s face is worth it.

John breathes deeply, and starts to cast his spell, this time never moving his gaze away from Sherlock.

Sherlock opens himself up to the current of magic that flows unseen, deep in the earth, beneath thousands of years of human existence. Philosophers and theorists may claim that the source of magic was from a comet, but Sherlock knows that magic has existed long before man existed in this realm, hidden beneath the surface, waiting for the right catalyst. The raw power sings to him, calling out to him. He dives into it, lets it flow into and through him, almost drunk with it as he feeds all of the power into John.

John begins to tremble, his mouth set in a thin line as he tries to contain the amount of power. _Steady_ , Sherlock orders, sending the words into his mind.

_Keep both eyes on me._

John’s forehead is covered in sweat, and he looks like he’s trying not to burst at the seams, holding all the raw magic in him, channeling it into breaking the barriers between life and death.

Time slows down, pausing, as if to regain its bearings, before it reverses itself. Sherlock watches as John, with Sherlock’s help, forces the plague out of the Emperor’s body. Slowly, the blackness in his veins drain away, the bruises fading as the skin begins to smoothen out, life returning.

John’s hands begin to glow, muted at first, but then it becomes so bright that Sherlock flinches at the sharp white light stabbing at his eyes. When his vision clears, the white fading away, he sees that John has managed to capture the plague in a spherical shield, containing it as it swirls around inside, dark and angry. The wound on the Emperor’s arm begins to close, sealing together and smoothing over as if the deep cut had never existed.

Emperor Athit stirs, his breathing quiet.

Suddenly Sherlock feels a sharp pain on his side, and he severs the magical connection instinctively. He looks down to see a dagger sticking out of his body, and he thinks, _Moriarty_.

Before he can react, he finds himself being pushed away, sliding across the floor, stopping just inches away from the gaping hole in the wall. He tries to reach for his magic, to put up a shield, but feels nothing.

Frustrated, he tries again. His magic stirs lightly, but it’s too faint and weak for him to latch onto. He's given away too much of it to John, he realises.

Moriarty leans over him, dripping blood onto Sherlock. He grasps the hilt of the dagger with his melting fingers, pulling it out and looking satisfied at the sharp grunt that Sherlock lets out at excruciating pain of his flesh being torn. “Sherlock, _Sherlock _. Did you think you could beat me that easily?”__

“I’ll make sure you stay dead next time,” Sherlock gasps out, between flashes of pain.

There’s a flash of silver, and Sherlock manages to hold onto Moriarty’s arm to block the descent of the dagger, but he’s too weak from pain and the loss of magic to push it away completely. To make it worse, Moriarty’s arm is slick with blood, making it harder for Sherlock to keep a firm grip on it.

The veins in Moriarty’s eyes seem to bleed with tears of blood as he stares at Sherlock through the veil of madness. With half his face burnt off and revealing his teeth, his face is gruesomely locked in a horrible grin. “ _I win_.”

Sherlock catches sight of John with the sphere still in one hand, gesturing wildly at Sherlock with the other.

“Not today,” Sherlock replies Moriarty. He gathers his remaining energy to push him back, shouting, “Now, John!”

The plague, released from its brief imprisonment with no master controlling it anymore, wraps its smoky tendrils around Moriarty’s body hungrily. With almost every bit of the skin already burnt off, the plague sinks into the flesh, flowing into the blood.

Moriarty screams, clawing at his face, his eyes, as if trying to tear the agony out of himself. He spins around, moving blindly, the plague overwhelming him.

“You need to destroy the plague, Sherlock!” John is shouting at him. “If we don’t, it’ll spread and cause the death of thousands!”

He can feel the faint stir of his magic returning slowly. It’s enough for a one, last fire spell before he burns out. It’ll take him at least a week to replenish all his sorcery once more.

Sherlock reaches for his magic, draining out whatever he has left and sending it all towards Moriarty. The flames that appear on his body begin to flicker, to grow, seeping into his body and burning away the plague.

Moriarty stumbles forward, nearly stepping on Sherlock who manages to roll out of the way as Moriarty falls through the gap in the wall, making a furtive grab at empty air before disappearing from sight.

Sherlock barely has a second to pause to properly sit up when he finds himself being yanked backwards, going over the edge as Moriarty throws out one last desperate spell to pull Sherlock down with him.

_This is it_ , Sherlock thinks. _My final fall_.

Suddenly a pair of hands grab onto his arm, and John’s eyes meet his, desperate and panicked.

“Sherlock, bloody hell!”

“John,” Sherlock manages to get out. He can see the man’s face is red, as he exerts all his energy trying to hold onto Sherlock, to pull him up without going over himself.

He’ll fail. Sherlock knows this. He can’t afford for John to die with him.

“Goodbye, John.”

He lets go.

The anguish on John’s face is the last thing he sees before he falls.

**\- + -**

The sky is a pale shade of gold, soft and beautiful, touched by the early morning sun. Instead of the dry Rustari heat, the wind direction has changed, bringing with it the cooling air from the mountains of Miyn, indicating the change in seasons, raising the spirits of the populace, as the threat of war that has been looming over their heads this past week has been lifted.

The price had been too high, John thinks bitterly.

It had been just two days since the battle of sorcerers had happened in the throne room between Sherlock and Moriarty, before they had disappeared into the ravine. Careful search of the ravine had turned up only one dead body, the flesh burnt clean off the bones - Moriarty - but nothing else. The river that ran along the bottom had swept away everything else.

John stares into the basin of water that’s been placed in his rooms. The Emperor had been recovering from his ordeal, but he had managed to pass on the orders for John to stay as his guest, while the mess that Moriarty had left behind was being sorted out. He’s had two days of sitting here, wanting to leave, to go somewhere where he could stop seeing everything that would remind him of Sherlock.

He’s still not used to it yet. Grief overwhelms him - he, John Watson, is a soldier, and the loss of a comrade-at-arms will never be something he can get used to. Yet Sherlock is more than just a comrade. He was the closest that John had to a friend, one whom he could trust, in a long time.

And so he’s busy staring into the basin, fingers gripping the edges of it, looking at his own reflection when suddenly the water ripples, revealing Mycroft’s face instead.

“Gahh!” John yelps out, startled.

“Hello, John.” Mycroft looks tired, as if he’s had trouble sleeping. John can understand. Sherlock, for all the snippy comments and petty barbs that Mycroft and Sherlock had exchanged, they were still brothers.

“Mycroft. Again, a little warning next time?”

“I thought to break it to you personally, instead of waiting for the official messengers to arrive,” Mycroft’s image replies. “The Council has cleared you of all wrongdoings. You are free to return home.”

“What …. what about Sherlock?” John asks quietly.

Mycroft hesitates. “The Council is grateful for his sacrifice and has declared him a hero to the nations for putting away such a large threat.”

John scowls at the image. “That’s the official statement, I suppose. Stop being coy, Mycroft. What aren’t they saying?”

A sigh. “The Council is.... split. Apparently Moriarty had made overtures to a few of them. Had Rustari gone to war with the Alliance, there would have been an increase in the demand for armour and weapons. As the primary supplier in the Alliance, the Koturi would have gained from it.”

John feels sick. That there are those willing to encourage warfare for the sake of lining their pockets, when thousands of lives could perish from the consequences. These individuals who would put profit before peace deserved nothing less than death.

It’s poetic justice, he supposes, that Moriarty was put down in the end by his own creation.

“When can you leave Rustari, John?” Mycroft asks. “I believe Mrs. Hudson has been asking after you - apparently she’s found something meant for you in Sherlock’s tower.”

John swallows. “I’ll... I’ll talk to the emperor.”

“Good.”

After passing a message to the guards standing outside his room door to the Emperor, John doesn’t need to wait long before he gets a reply that the Emperor is keen to speak to John right away in the royal study.

John bows formally at the recovering emperor seated behind a large ornate desk, observing him. “Your Majesty.”

Emperor Athit smiles at him, and his face looks younger instantly. “John Watson. It would seem that I am in debt to you for saving my life. And my kingdom as well.”

“Your Majesty owes me nothing; it was my role as a healer. As for your kingdom, the praise goes to Sherlock Holmes.” John is thinking of Sherlock, of the empty space residing in his heart.

The emperor sighs heavily, and leans forward. Closer, the circles around his eyes seem more prominent, giving away his exhaustion.

“We mourn for your loss. Without both of your help, we would have entered another senseless war again, one which we could not have afforded,” he says. “You may stay as long as you like, of course, we will see to your every need. I would bestow more rewards upon you or even more lands in your name, but I hear that my gifts have all been rejected.”

“Sorry, I just - your Majesty - it’s not that I’m not grateful. But, I’d like to go home to Lonin.”

Emperor Athit nods. “Very well. I shall call for one of our sorcerers to open the portal for you later.”

John nods stiffly, released from the Emperor’s presence. He turns to leave when Emperor Athit spoke again, pausing him in his tracks.

“I had only a small glimpse of Adept Holmes, before my brief... inconvenience,” the emperor says. “I regret not having the opportunity to have spoken to him personally. I have heard that Sherlock Holmes was a great man.”

John glances back at the Emperor, and can't help but smile at the irony. “Not just a great man. He was a _good_ man,” he adds, and then steps out.

**\- + -**

It takes John a few days to settle back in his room above the densely packed inns in Lonin and another few more days to gather up the courage to head over to the tower.

Mrs. Hudson isn’t home, but there’s a note left behind for him telling him to head up to the tower to find the item meant for him. John hesitates. With Sherlock gone, he’s not sure if he should be entering his place.

John could have asked Mycroft for help instead. Or he could have come back another day, when Mrs. Hudson was home.

However, when he pushes open the door which has been left unlocked for him, all these thoughts go flying out of his head as he stops short in the doorway, staring at a man who’s sitting on the chair by the desk, tall and too thin and _familiar_.

Sherlock looks back at him calmly.

John takes a few steps back, swivels around on his heels, slamming the door in his departure.

Two seconds later, the door opens, and someone is grabbing him, pulling him back into the room. Before he can say anything, Sherlock is kissing his lips as if he never wants to stop and John can feel the love and devotion pouring out of Sherlock into that one, single kiss.

Annoyed, John bites Sherlock’s lip. Hard.

“What the f --” Sherlock staggers back, and his lower lip is bleeding, as he looks back at John, stupefied. “Did you pick up some odd Rustari custom while I was away?”

“ _Away?_ ” John tries to rein in his heart, which is beating so fast that he can barely hear himself, and his hands, which are itching to find a sharp object. Or a blunt one, whichever is nearest. “You let me think you were _dead_ , you _bloody sodding idiot_ ,” John yells at him. “ _Two bloody weeks_ , not a single word.”

“John -”

John punches him in the face.

**\- + -**

Three hours later, along with several broken test tubes and a half-destroyed table that couldn’t quite take the weight of two men christening it with hard, rough sex, John looks up from where he’s tucked into Sherlock’s chest. The door is closed - not locked - but John can’t be bothered to move from the couch right now to lock it.

“How did you know about the missing part from the scrolls?” He asks. The question has been burning away in the back of his mind ever since Sherlock had revealed his knowledge on the restoration spell.

“I have a one of the six original copies of the scrolls.”

John gives him a look of disbelief. “ _Original_? Sherlock, do you mean to say that the others were all-.”

“Fake?” Sherlock yawns briefly, his eyes still closed. “Yes. By the way, that was a splendid blow.” He lifts one hand to touch his face, wincing.

“Sorry about the eye,” John tells him, not sounding particularly sorry about it.

Sherlock grunts in response, flinching back, before peeking an eye open to peer back at him. “Will you heal it?”

“No,” John tells him. “I still haven’t completely forgiven you.” Sherlock pouts. “Don’t do that, it looks terrible on you - _Sherlock!_ ” he yelps as a finger presses back inside him, where he’s still sore from their earlier activities.

His protests fade into whimpers when Sherlock strokes deep inside him, right at that spot that sends sparks up his spine. John is hopeless at that point and buries his face in Sherlock’s chest, rocking back as Sherlock pushes in another finger.

“John,” he hears Sherlock saying in a low voice, and his head is being tilted upwards as lips swollen from hours of kissing press against his own, claiming him. He lets Sherlock press him down onto the couch, one leg lifted and wrapped around Sherlock’s waist. He feels Sherlock’s fingers slipping out, replaced by the insistent press of his cock - how is he _still_ even hard - pushing into John in one swift motion.

Later, much later, with Sherlock’s arms around him, just as he’s about to fall asleep, John thinks he hears a quiet murmur of “Thank you”.

What Sherlock doesn't say aloud but John can hear in his voice is: _I love you_.

  


**EPILOGUE**

The next morning they wake up - naked and still smelling of their previous day’s activities - to Mrs. Hudson looking at the state of the room disapprovingly. John is mortified and nearly bolts off to the bedroom, with the blanket, but Sherlock merely pulls him back into his arms, and wraps one leg around him to keep him from moving off the couch.

“Sherlock, what have you done to my blooming table?” Mrs. Hudson scolds, focusing on the most important problem at hand.

“I’ll buy you a new one, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock tells her calmly, as John sputters and tries to make his escape, but she notices him anyway. Mrs Hudson beams at both of them, broken table all forgotten, and tells John that he ought to take better care of Sherlock, he’s getting too skinny lately, and then leaves.

“So you’re staying, then?” Sherlock tries to sound casual, but he can’t quite keep the elation out of his voice.

"Well, someone's got to keep you out of trouble," John retorts. “Can’t have you without a Companion now, can we?”

Sherlock can’t help leaning down and kissing John blissfully.

A Companion.

Mycroft would be smug for _months_.

"How do you feel about the violin?"

  


_-End-_


End file.
